


Keybladed Avengers

by The_Unlimited



Series: Light and Avengers [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Add in of new characters, Crossover, During Kingdom Hearts I, Gen, OC Vanitas, this is gonna be fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-11-02 00:30:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20560310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Unlimited/pseuds/The_Unlimited
Summary: After crash landing on Earth 616, Sora and Vanitas find themselves in a bit of a pickle. Their friends are unconscious, their ship is damaged, and they just broke up a fight between a man in iron armor and a blonde man with a big hammer. Soon afterwords, they have to deal with mind control, and army of aliens, and a Norse God that's way into Shakespeare. Our heroes have to team up with Earth's Mightiest Heroes and try to stop a combination of the Chitari and the Heartless. How bad could it be?





	1. Not the normal way to meet someone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After crash landing on Earth 616, Sora and Vanitas find themselves in a bit of a pickle. Their friends are unconscious, their ship is damaged, and they just broke up a fight between a man in iron armor and a blonde man with a big hammer. Soon afterwords, they have to deal with mind control, and army of aliens, and a Norse God that's way into Shakespeare. Our heroes have to team up with Earth's Mightiest Heroes and try to stop a combination of the Chitari and the Heartless. How bad could it be?

"Got 'em," Vanitas announced as he climbed off of the ship, carrying Donald and Goofy. "Where do I set them down?"

"Over here," Sora gestured, and Vanitas followed him. "They need some air."

The Gummi Ship had crashed into Earth hard. As badly as it was damaged after being swallowed by a giant whale, it was even more damaged now. There was no way they were gonna fly it away unless they could get it fixed. Unfortunately, none of them were mechanics with this thing, and their only way to contact Cid was on the ship's computer... which exploded in Donald's face.

Vanitas laid Donald and Goofy on the ground and he and Sora looked back at the Gummi Ship. They winced as they watched another explosion originate from the cockpit.

"How much stuff on one ship explode?" Sora asked.

"We'll figure that out later," Vanitas said, waving his hand. "More importantly, what do we do now? These two need medical help, and I don't think there's a hospital around here. Plus, I'm pretty sure they would react too well to a giant duck or dog, either."

"What about your bag?" Sora asked.

"Oh, yeah!" Vanitas said, pulling off his sling to rummage around in it. "I completely forgot about..."

It only took a few seconds of rummaging for Vanitas to figure out that the bag wasn't in the sling.

"I don't get it," Vanitas said, looking in the satchel in confusion. "Where could that thing..."

Another explosion happened, and the two of them figured it out quickly.

"Was the cooler in there, too?" Sora asked.

"Yep," Vanitas said.

"This isn't good," Sora said.

"Nope," Vanitas agreed.

All of a sudden, they could hear really loud crashing deep into the woods. Not knowing what it was, they of course stood up, on edge.

"What could that be?" Sora asked, summoning his Keyblade.

"Nothing pleasant," Vanitas said, pulling out his shotgun and sliding shells into it. "You stay here, watch over Donnie and Goof. I'll check it out."

Sora nodded his head.

"Good luck," he said.

"Don't need it," Vanitas told Sora. "I don't feel pain."

Vantias pumped the shotgun and walked through the woods, ignoring everything horror movies taught him as he walked towards the noises. After a few seconds, he started to hear voices.

"Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?" an American voice asked.

"This is beyond you, metal man," a British sounding voice got louder as Vanitas got closer. "Loki will face Asgardian justice."

Vanitas suddenly felt a surge of anger and hatred rush through him at the mention of Asgard, but he didn't understand why.

"He gives up the cube, he's all yours," the American voice said. "Until then..." The sound of metal gears moving then originated from the same place. "Stay out of the way."

It was at this moment that Vanitas walked into a small clearing, and he saw what was going on.

A man in full bodied red and gold armor was talking to a blonde man in more ornate looking armor. Both men were taller than Vanitas, and the blonde man was holding a big hammer.

Unfortunately, Vanitas stepped on the wrong twig and their attention was now drawn to them.

"Oh, shit," Vanitas said as he held up his shotgun.

"Put it down!" the American voice came out of the armored man.

The man in the armor then raised his hand at Vanitas, and Vanitas was able to recognize blasters in the center of the gloves.

"You put it down!" Vanitas retorted, pointing his gun at the armored man.

"You could be dangerous!" the armored man told him.

"So could you!" Vanitas retorted, a bit more force in his voice.

"I'm not gonna ask you again," the armored man told Vanitas. He then looked at the blonde man. "Sit tight, I'm gonna take care of this guy first."

"Yeah, right," Vanitas said. "Like either of you could take..."

He looked from the armored man to the blonde man. In that instant, Vanitas was able to recognize the designs of the blonde man's armor, along with the cape he wore and the hammer he was holding. All of a sudden, pure, unbridled rage filled Vanitas.

"Asgardian," he growled out.

The blonde man looked surprised, not expecting the child in front of him to recognize him.

"Look, young one," he told Vanitas. "This doesn't concern you. So how about you leave here, and we can forget you were even-"

He was cut off by Vanitas shooting him in the chest with his shotgun. Vanitas then walked towards him, keeping up shooting him until his gun ran out. The shells barely even scratched his armor, but Vanitas didn't care. He discarded his shotgun and walked towards the blonde, anger in his eyes.

The blonde man was obviously offended. With newfound anger in his eyes, he swung his hammer at the approaching Vanitas, knocking him back through a tree. Still angry, the man then through his hammer at the armored man, knocking _him _back through a tree as well.

This pissed off the armored man.

"Okay," he said through his armor.

The hammer flew back into the blonde man's hand and he spun it around by a wrap on the bottom of the handle. Vanitas then stood up and walked towards the blonde man.

"Kid," the armored man called out. "You might not wanna get involved in-"

He was cut off as Vanitas twirled his hand in a circle, making a fire ball appear in it. A little surprised, the armored man then shot the blonde with a blast from his glove, knocking him against another tree. The armored man then looked at Vanitas.

"How can you-"

Vanitas cut him off by hurling his fire ball at his helmet. It exploded, leaving the man blind due to the fire. Vanitas then turned to the blonde man, and hurled another fire ball at him, knocking him through a tree. With the fire gone from his mask, the armored man then flew at Vanitas, tackling him and knocking him forwards.

Vanitas got up on his knees and saw he was in front of the blonde man who was in a similar position. The blonde man held out his hand, and his hammer flew in it. Vanitas made fire come up out of the palm of his hand and shot it at the blonde man. After completely engulfing the blonde man, Vanitas was a little surprised when the man waved his arms through the fire, dismissing it. The blonde man then swung his hammer, hitting Vanitas in the face, knocking him aside.

The blonde man held up his hammer, and lightning came down. The hammer absorbed the lightning for a few seconds, then the blonde man pointed it at the armored man. The lightning shot out and hit the armored man for a few good seconds. The armor absorbed the lightning, but still hurt him a little bit. The lightning stopped flowing, and the man winced a bit in his armor.

"Power at 400% capacity," an electronic voice told the armored man.

"How 'bout that?" the armored man asked.

He then shot beams out of both his gloves and the plate on his chest, knocking the blonde man back. The man landed on one knee in front of a tree and stared down the armored man.

Vanitas then jumped in between the two.

"This isn't your fight, kid," the armored man told him.

"Says you," Vanitas looked over his shoulder at the armored man. "Who the hell are you guys, anyway?"

He looked back at the blonde man, who was a little surprised that after hitting him in the face with his hammer, the ravenette only had a scratch on his face.

"I am Thor of Asgard," the blonde man told him.

"And I'm Iron Man," the armored man said.

"Wait a minute," Vanitas said. "I just realized: I don't give a shit."

Fireballs appeared in both of Vanitas' hands, and he loped one at both Iron Man and Thor. This fazed neither man, and the fight continued.

Thor used his hammer to fly up and Vanitas lunged at him. Vanitas missed and ended up dangling from Thor's cape in the air. At the same time, Iron Man had flown up to intercept Thor with the thrusters on his boots. Iron Man grabbed Thor and dragged him along, hitting his heads along the trees. Vanitas got a little scratched up from the tree branches dangling off the cape as they flew up near a mountain side.

Iron Man flew them up, dragging Thor against the mountain side. Thor tried elbowing him off, and Vanitas helped by making a fireball appear in front of the man's mask. Unfortunately, Iron Man just took them off of the mountain, and they flew over the forest.

Still dangling from the cape, Vanitas tried ramming his fist into Thor's groin. Turns out his armor was pretty tough, and if Vanitas could have felt it, his hand would have hurt.

They fell to the ground, crashing through more forest trees. Thor's hammer fell somewhere along the way, and the three of them hit the ground hard. A tree collapsed nearby, as well.

The three stood back up quickly, and Thor punched Iron Man in the face. Vanitas grabbed Thor by his shoulder and jumped up, kneeing him right in the chest. Iron Man tried punching Thor with his right hand in retaliation, but Thor caught his wrist in his left hand and held it aside. Vanitas then side kicked Iron Man in the gut and tried uppercut punching Thor. Thor caught Vanitas' left hand with his right hand and held it in place. Iron Man tried punching Vanitas with his left hand, but Vanitas caught it with his right hand.

Thor started crushing Iron Man's wrist armor with his left hand, but Iron Man stoped him by blasting him with his glove's thruster. Thor fell back a bit, losing his grip on both men. Iron Man tried head butting him, but it didn't work. Thor head butted him back, and he flew through the air back.

Vanitas grabbed Thor by the shoulder and jumped up a couple of times, kneeing him. After Thor didn't as much as flinch, Vanitas jumped up so he was over Thor, and came down, elbowing Thor in the head as he came down. Thor then caught Vanitas by his jacket and threw him near Iron Man.

Iron Man then flew at Thor and grabbed him by his shoulders. He spun Thor around and threw him into the fallen tree. Thor quickly stood back up and ran at Iron Man. Iron Man missed with a punch, and Thor punched him in the side twice. He then hit Iron Man on the top of the head, knocking him on his hands and knees. Thor then grabbed Iron Man by the shoulders and lifted him up in the air. He then slammed Iron Man into the ground, hard.

With Thor standing over Iron Man, Vanitas rushed forward and jumped up, kicking the Asgardian in the head. Vanitas grabbed at Thor's armor and punched him repeatedly in the face. Barely fazed, Thor held out his hand and the hammer flew back in. He knocked Vanitas aside and tried hitting Iron Man with his hammer. Iron Man just engaged his thrusters, flying forwards and knocking Thor onto his front.

With Thor lying next to him, Vanitas did not hesitate to kick the man in the head. Iron Man then flew in a little arc in the air and came back, punching Thor in the face as he landed. Thor then lifted his hammer, trying to hit both men...

"Hey!" a new voice called out.

A red, white and blue shield flew into view, stopping Thor from doing the attack, hitting Iron Man in the chest, and flying back into the owner's hand. The owner was standing on a big tree branch over the others. He wore a blue suit with red and white designs across the chest and armors. A star was in the center of his chest, and a blue mask covered the top half of his face, with the letter A in the center of the forehead. He attached the shield to his left arm and looked down at the three.

"That's enough!" he announced.

"What the fuck is going on on this world?" Vanitas asked, genuinely confused.

The man jumped off the branch and looked at the three who were just fighting.

"Now I don't know what you plan on doing here," he said.

"I've come here to put an end to Loki's schemes!" Thor told him.

"I crashed here with my friends!" Vanitas yelled. He paused. "Did I just say friends?"

"Vanitas!" a new voice announced, making Vanitas' blood run cold.

Sora ran out from the trees, and looked a little surprised at seeing three men in various outfits standing around his friend.

"Stay back, Sora," Vanitas told him. "This is getting ugly fast."

Sora just summoned his Keyblade and stood in his battle stance. Iron Man and the new man looked a little surprised at this, as this was something they weren't used to. Thor looked surprised as well, but in a more familiar way.

"Chosen wielder of the Keyblade," Thor announced. "This doesn't concern you."

"My friend's in danger," Sora told him. "So it does concern me."

"You got heart, kid," the man in blue said. "But you might want to stay back, just in case."

He turned to look at Thor again.

"If you're really here to help, then prove it," he announced. "Put that hammer down."

"Uh, no," Iron Man said. "Bad call. He loves his h-"

Thor cut him off by swinging his hammer back, knocking the man back against the ground. He then swung his hammer forwards, knocking Vanitas behind the man in blue.

"YOU WANT ME TO PUT THE HAMMER DOWN?!?" Thor bellowed.

"Oh, shit!" Vanitas yelled in genuine fear.

Thor lunged forward and pulled back his hammer. The man held up his shield in defense just as hammer came down in an attack. The hammer hit the shield, causing a massive shockwave that also made the sound of a bell gonging when the hammer hit the shield. The shockwave knocked back Thor and cleared out most of the trees.

Once the smoke cleared, the man in blue was still kneeling where he was, his shield held up in defense. Sora and Vanitas were laying in the ground nearby, Vanitas' arm draped over Sora in defense. After a second, they stood back up, along with everyone else.

Within seconds, the five of them stood up around each other, breathing shakily at what just happened.

"Damn, that was awesome," Vanitas commented.

"It really was," Sora said, nodding his head.

"Are we done here?" the man in blue asked.

After looking around for a second, Thor nodded his head and looked at them.

"We're gonna need some help," Sora told them. "Our friends are hurt."

"How are they hurt?" the man in blue asked.

"Well, see..." Sora started to explain.

"Our ships's computer blew up in one's face," Vanitas explained. "And one hit his head on the console."

Sora looked at him in surprise.

"They already know," Vanitas said. He gestured to Thor. "This guy's not even from this world."

"We'll help them," the man in blue said. "I'm Captain America. You already met Iron Man and Thor. You guys are?"

"Vanitas Jordan," Vanitas said. "This is Sora. I honestly don't know his last name."

Sora waved.

"Our friends are Donald and Goofy," he said. "They're just through here."

Sora started walking back the way towards the ship with Captain America behind him. Iron Man trailed behind.

"Wait, Donald and Goofy?" he asked Vanitas. "Is one a talking duck and one a talking dog?"

"Yeah," Vanitas nodded his head. "How'd you know?"

Iron Man just stared at him.

"This is gonna get interesting," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a little while, but thankfully not as long as the usual chapters I do. Remember, this takes place during the first Kingdom Hearts, so Sora's still in the red outfit. For those curious about why I chose this version of Sora, I've actually read two other crossover fanfictions putting Sora in the first Avengers. One was after KHII, and the other was after KHIII, so he's already got lots of experience with the Keyblade. I figured, why not have it during the first one, so that when they end up in the later movies, they've progressed a little more with their powers.


	2. Catching up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group travels to the SHIELD helicarrier where introductions are made, and old friends are reunited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though I have the movies on Blu Ray, it's a lot easier to watch them on these movie watching websites. Meaning it's easier to go back a few seconds to get back lines. Although, there aren't subtitles, so it's harder to interpret some of what they're saying, but that's part of the benefit of going back a few seconds at a time.

Sora and Vanitas led the group back to where the Gummi Ship crashed. After a rightful amount of time processing the fact that characters they knew from Disney were lying unconscious in front of them, Captain America and Iron Man called in their back up, which came in the form of a nearby Quinjet. Thor collected Loki nearby, and they all gathered in the Quinjet with the redheaded Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanoff.

She was very surprised to see two teenagers with the group, along with an anthropomorphic dog and duck. And of course, the giant crashed ship in the forest.

"How did you guys find them?" she asked Captain America as they walked back into the cockpit.

"The black haired one fought Stark and Thor," Captain America explained. "Managed to do pretty well."

"If you hadn't intercepted," Vanitas announced, suddenly. "I could have kicked both their asses."

Iron Man scoffed.

"Sure you could," his voice said underneath the mask.

Vanitas pulled back, pretending he was gonna punch Iron Man. He didn't as much as flinch, so Vanitas just lowered his fist.

"Lot of tension," Sora observed. "How about we try to calm down, and see how we can work together?"

Everyone just looked at him blankly.

"Or not?" Sora asked.

The flight continued in silence as everyone ignored him.

After a few minutes of flying, Vanitas and Sora looked out the front windows in awe as they approached the SHIELD Helicarrier in the night sky.

"Holy..." Sora said.

"Shit," Vanitas finished, impressed.

"Language," Captain America said.

Everyone looked at him, surprised and confused.

"Tell me you didn't just say that," Iron Man said.

"Sorry," Captain America said. "I don't know where that came from."

"Remind me to never let him forget that," Vanitas told Sora.

"Got it," Sora said, eliciting a laugh from Iron Man.

They docked at the hanger and made their way through the hallways, in which they were separated from a man wearing green with long black hair. Sora and Vanitas were able to interpret the shackles on his wrists to mean that he was a prisoner. He was lead away by multiple men wearing armor and carrying assault rifles.

"I'm guessing that's Loki?" Vanitas asked Captain America.

The man had taken off his mask, revealing his sandy hair.

"He's caused a lot of problems for us in the last couple of days," he confirmed. "Come with us, we'll explain a bit."

"And we'll explain what we've been up to," Sora agreed.

The group made it to the main area of the helicarrier where they met a man that was clearly a scientist. He had greying hair and was wearing glasses and a purple shirt. He introduced himself as Bruce Banner, Captain America introduced himself as Steve Rogers, and they explained that Iron Man was Tony Stark. They also explained some of their backstories, how Natasha was a former Russian spy turned agent, Steve was a soldier from WWII who was injected with a super soldier serum and then frozen, Tony was a billionaire who was held ransom, escaped, and built his Iron Man suits, and Bruce had an alter ego that was a giant green rage monster. It was in this room, with many of them sitting at a round table, that Vanitas decided to apologize to Thor.

"I have no idea what came over me," Vanitas said, standing next to Thor. "I just recognized the Asgardian symbols on your armor, and I just saw red."

"It's all right," Thor told him. "No harm done. I'm quite used to getting hit. But I must ask, why do you think you would have done that?"

"Maybe something from before the amnesia?" Sora suggested, sitting at the table with Natasha and Steve.

"Amnesia?" Bruce asked.

"Oh, right," Vanitas said, his arms crossed. "Maybe we should swap war stories now."

"Sounds like a good idea," Natasha agreed.

Natasha and Steve explained how Loki had appeared on Earth a few days prior and had stolen a very valuable, very dangerous item called the Tesseract. Carrying a staff, he destroyed a SHIELD base and stole a bunch of equipment, intending on using it as part of his plan. The director of SHIELD, Nick Fury, brought the group together to track down Loki and stop him. They got him in Germany, and were on their way back to the helicarrier when they were intercepted by Thor.

"Then you guys fought," Steve continued. "And you know the rest."

"All right," Vanitas said, nodding his head, impressed. "Now our turn."

Sora and Vanitas took turns explaining how they were on a quest to go to various worlds and seal the Keyholes, saving them from the Heartless. The villainess they had to stop was an evil fairy named Maleficent, who had a variety of minions at her disposal.

"I'm still having a hard time believing all these Disney characters are real," Natasha commented, looking at Steve, then back at Sora and Vanitas. "Much less that they're world traveling warriors out to protect the safety of the worlds. Or even that they're in our med bay, being watched over by our medics."

"Believe it or not," Vanitas said. "That's the normalest part of our jobs."

"These Heartless," Steve said. "Do some of them look like small, living black shadows?"

"Exactly," Sora said, pointing at the Captain. "Where did you see them?"

"Loki was controlling them in Germany," Steve explained. "They followed his commands in corralling the people. They weren't the easiest to defeat, but Stark and I managed to take them out."

"Looks like Loki's one of Maleficent's lackeys," Vanitas told Sora.

"I guess crashing here by accident wasn't so bad after all," Sora said. "We gotta stop him."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"One more thing," Thor said, looking at Vanitas with interest. "I hit you in the face multiple times with my hammer, and yet... you only have a few scratches. How is this possible?"

Instead of answering, Vanitas pulled out one of his knives and drove it into his chest. He left it in there, just casually looking at the others. Everyone except Sora was very surprised at what they witnessed, and were shocked when Vanitas didn't even wince in pain, _and _ that there wasn't any blood.

"Ten years ago," Vanitas explained, pulling out the knife. "I was in an accident that took away my life force and my memories. I haven't aged in ten years, I don't remember anything from beforehand, and I don't feel pain. Worst part: I can't even get drunk to make the sadness go away."

"Wait," Bruce said. "You're telling us that even though you're fifteen, you're actually twenty-five? And you're pretty much a zombie?"

"I don't like that word," Vanitas commented. "But yes."

"Come on, Vanitas," Sora said, standing up.

Sora summoned his Keyblade, surprising the people who didn't know about it yet. He raised they Keyblade, which glowed green light at the end. Green light then appeared around Vanitas, healing his cuts and bruises, and the stab wound. Once the light faded, Sora dismissed his Keyblade and sat back down.

"We have to do that a lot," Sora said.

"I used to have a bunch of powers beforehand," Vanitas continued. "But with my life force gone, I can't access them. Well, except..."

He held up his hand, and a small fire appeared in his palm.

"Plus side," Vanitas said, extinguishing the fire. "I never get cold."

"Do you even feel cold?" Natasha asked.

Vanitas paused.

"Let's change the subject," he said, suddenly.

The group turned to a screen that was observing the exchange between Nick Fury and Loki ended in the prison cell on a screen.

"Let me know if real power wants a magazine," they heard Fury's voice.

After a second of silence, the screen turned off.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce asked.

"Eh," Vanitas said, waving his hand to gesture 50-50.

"Loki's gonna drag this out," Steve said. "So..."

He looked up at Thor, who was looking out over the dozens of people on computers in the room.

"Thor," he said. "What's his play?"

"He has an army," Thor answered.

"Besides the Heartless?" Sora asked.

"Yes," Thor said. "They're called the Chitari. They're not of Asgard or any world known."

Vanitas perked up at the mention of the Chitari.

"Don't take them lightly," he warned. "There's a lot of them, and they're pretty dangerous."

Everyone paused and looked at him.

"My memories come back in random spurts if I hear something I knew before," he explained. "It's a weird system."

"It sound's like a weird system," Thor agreed. He continued as a woman named Maria Hill approached and joined them. "Loki means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth. And return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army" Steve stated, then looked to Natasha. "From outer space."

"I've faced three," Vanitas said. "They're not good."

He looked to Sora.

"It's a _really _good thing we're here," he said.

Sora nodded in agreement.

"So he's building another portal," Bruce said, taking off his glasses. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?" Thor asked, interested.

"He's an astrophysicist," Bruce answered.

"He's a friend," Thor said.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Natasha said. She paused before she continued. "Along with one of ours."

"I wanna know why Loki let us take him," Steve said. "He's not leading an army from here."

"I watched a bunch of detective movies when I was a kid," Vanitas said. "I can help figure this out."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Bruce said. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You could smell crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak," Thor said, suddenly. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother."

Vanitas nodded in silent respect at that. It wasn't often you saw a sibling stand up for another sibling like this.

"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha blankly said, looking at Thor.

"He's adopted," Thor sighed out.

Vanitas had to fight back a chuckle. Sora hit him in the shoulder when he saw the smile appear on his lookalike's face.

"I think it's about the mechanics," Bruce said. "Iridium. What did they need the iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent," a familiar voice called out.

They turned to see the man introduced earlier as Tony Stark walk in with Phil Coulson.

"No, I'm gonna say," Tony whispered to Phil. "Take a weekend, I'll fly you to Portland."

Phil smiled at that and pointed to his left.

"Keep love alive," Tony finished as the two man separated.

Vanitas wondered why he could hear that so well, but quickly shook it away as Tony started walking towards them.

"It means," Tony continued. "The portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD."

He slowed as he walked towards Thor.

"No hard feelings, Point Break. You got a mean swing," Tony patted Thor's bicep. Thor looked down in confusion as Tony continued to Vanitas. "Same with you, Scarface."

"Real original," Vanitas commented. "Hang on, _you're _Iron Man?"

"Yes," Tony said, nodding.

Vanitas paused for a second, looking at Tony in consideration. His frown quickly became a smirk.

"I like you," Vanitas said.

The two men quickly pointed at each other and declared, "No homo!" They paused and laughed. "Nice," they said at once before fist bumping.

"Great," Sora sarcastically said with a smile. "You found the one person here who's exactly like you."

"I know," Vanitas genuinely asked. "What are the odds?"

Tony continued as he walked towards the central console facing the skyline. "Also means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants."

He stood in the central part and looked out at the people on the computers.

"Uh, raise the mizzenmast," he called out. "Ship, top top."

People just stared at him.

"That man is playing Galaga!" Tony announced, pointing at a random guy. "Thought we wouldn't notice."

Steve followed Tony's pointed hand, and Vanitas laughed.

"But we did," Tony finished. He then covered one eye and looked around. "How does Fury even see these?"

He looked over his shoulder at Hill.

"He turns," Hill answered.

"Sounds exhausting," Tony said as he started messing with one of the consoles. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source..." He messed with the other console. "Of high energy density."

Vanitas was the only one to notice it when Tony attached a small object in a hidden part of the console. He was suspicious, of course, but given that he liked the man, he was gonna give the benefit of the doubt.

"Something to," Tony wiped his hands. "Kickstart the cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Hill asked.

"Last night," Tony said. "The packet. Selvig's notes." He started walking towards the table. "The extraction theory papers."

He spread out his arms.

"Am I the only one that did the reading?" Tony asked.

"We just got here," Sora said, at which Vanitas nodded.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked.

Bruce spoke up.

"He'd have to heat the cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break through the cooling barrier," he said.

"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect," Tony said, walking towards Bruce.

"Well," Bruce continued. "If he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusing at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally," Tony said, gesturing to Bruce. "Someone who speaks English."

"Is that what just happened?" Steve asked as Tony and Bruce shook hands.

Sora looked at the scientists in confusion.

"Could you understand any of that?" he whispered to Vanitas.

"Not a word," Vanitas whispered back.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner," Tony said, at which Bruce nodded. "Your work on anti electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous, green, rage monster."

"Enormous green wha?" Sora asked, confused.

Vanitas had to fight laughing while Bruce looked down, embarrassed.

"Thanks," Bruce reluctantly said.

"Doctor Banner is only here to track the cube," a bald black man with an eyepatch announced as he walked in the room and stood next to the table. "I was hoping you might join him."

"I'd start with that stick of his," Steve suggested. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

"I don't know about that," Fury said, drawing Steve's attention. "But it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor asked. "I do not understand..."

"I do!" Steve announced, at which both Vanitas and Tony looked up, embarrassed. "I understood that reference."

Seeing that Sora looked confused, Vanitas decided to spell it out for him and Thor.

"It's a reference to a really movie that came out in the 1930s," Vanitas told them. "The villainess has flying monkeys as her minions."

Sora and Thor nodded in understanding. Fury, just now noticing Sora and Vanitas, looked surprised at them.

"Jordan!" he announced, garnering Vanitas' attention. "It's been a long time."

"You two know each other?" Natasha asked, looking from Fury to Vanitas.

"Come to think of it," Vanitas said. "You _do _look kind of familiar."

"Kind of?" Fury asked.

"He's had amnesia for ten years," Sora explained. "If you guys know each other, it was probably from before that."

Fury nodded in understanding.

"He landed here in the 90's," Fury explained. "Helped out SHIELD when we were starting out. We owe him our lives for that."

"No thanks," Vanitas said. "I don't think your lives would look good with the rest of my shit back home."

Half of the group looked annoyed, Fury looked down in shame, and Sora and Tony were holding back smirks.

"Shall we play, Doctor?" Tony asked Bruce.

"This way, sir," Bruce gestured with his arm.

The two started walking down the hall.

"Let's go with them," Vanitas whispered to Sora. "They seem more fun."

"You do that," Sora whispered back. "I'm gonna stay here."

"All right," Vanitas whispered back, standing up.

He started walking after the two scientists, but was stopped by Fury in the doorway.

"Your friend said you have amnesia," Fury recounted. "So you don't remember meeting me at all?"

"Nope," Vanitas said, shrugging his shoulders.

"So you don't remember how I lost my eye?" Fury asked, his tone serious.

"Not at all," Vanitas admitted.

Fury let out a breath of relief.

"All right, then," he said, patting Vanitas' shoulder. "Cap can watch over your brother."

"He's not my brother," Vanitas said.

Fury looked surprised at that. He looked from Sora to Vanitas.

"Really?" Fury asked.

"I understand the confusion," Vanitas said. "But really."

Vanitas turned from Fury and started walking down the hallway, ready to hand out with Bruce and Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The basis is that Vanitas was on Earth 616 before the events of Birth By Sleep, before everything with Xehanort happened, during the events of Captain Marvel. Like i said, i still don't have that movie on blu ray yet, so The Avengers is gonna be first. Might do it in the same order the movies came out, still haven't decided yet.


	3. Making new friends- Vanitas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanitas spends some time with the science bros, which has varying results

"So, the kid and his friends planned on leaving their island and exploring other worlds on a _raft_?" Tony asked Vanitas, genuinely confused.

"Yeah," Vanitas confirmed, with equal disbelief towards Sora. "He's not exactly the brightest. Still find it hard to believe the fate of all worlds falls on his shoulders."

"You never know," Bruce interjected nearby as he scanned a cool looking scepter. "He might surprise us all."

"Yeah," Vanitas said, placing his jacket and sling on a nearby chair. "That's what worries me."

The three of them had gathered in the science lab, and were chattering while Bruce and Tony scanned the equipment they stole from Loki, in an attempt to find the Tesseract. Tony was standing next to Vanitas, and had also taken off the fancy parts of his outfit, so he was now wearing a shirt with various designs. Bruce was behind the desk, scanning the scepter with a piece of equipment.

"The gamma rays are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports of the Tesseract," Bruce said, reading off a screen. "But it's gonna take weeks to process."

"Weeks, that, I'm guessing we don't have?" Vanitas asked.

"Nope," Tony said, working on another computer. "If we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster, we can clock this at around 600 teraflops."

Vanitas just looked at the two men.

"I have no idea what the fuck either of you are saying," he announced. "But it sounds cool."

Both men chuckled at that.

"All I packed was a toothbrush," Bruce said to Tony, who had started walking over to him.

"You know," Tony said, pointing at Bruce. "You should come by Stark Towers sometime. Top 10 floors, all R&D. You'd love it. It's Candy Land."

He picked up a small rod as he walked next to Bruce.

"You're invited, too," Tony then said to Vanitas. "You seem like a fun guy to have around, and it wouldn't mind having someone constantly praising my genius."

Vanitas laughed.

"I'll keep that in mind once this madness with the darkness is over," he said, crossing his arms. "It would be nice to finally have a break.

"Thanks," Bruce said to Tony. "But the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke... Harlem."

"Well, I promise a stress free environment," Tony said as he waved his arms. He continued as he walked past Bruce. "No tension, no surprises."

He then jabbed Bruce in the side with the rod, zapping him.

"Ow!" Bruce exclaimed, looking at Tony.

Vanitas remembered Tony's earlier words about Bruce turning into a big, green rage monster, and looked at the man expectantly with Tony. When nothing happened, they then looked at him with surprise and confusion. He just looked at them with a slight smile on his face like they were idiots.

"Hey!" Steve called out as he and Sora walked into the room.

"Nothing?" Tony asked Bruce.

"Are you nuts?" Steve asked.

"Jury's out," Tony said instead of answering. He turned to Bruce. "You've really got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?"

"Can I borrow the bag?" Vanitas asked.

The whole time, Steve just looked at them, incredulously.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked Tony.

"Funny things are," Tony said, pointing at Steve with the rod.

"Yeah," Vanitas agreed with Tony.

"Sorry, but this seems like a time to be really serious," Sora told them.

"Exactly," Steve agreed. "Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny."

He turned towards Bruce.

"No offense, Doc."

"It's all right," Bruce stammered out as Tony held up his hands in surrender. "I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."

Tony walked across the desk again.

"You're tip-toeing, big man," he said to Bruce. "You need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," Steve said.

Sora nodded in agreement.

"Do you think I'm not?" Tony asked as he picked up a small bag. He then walked towards the desk again. "Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us?"

Vanitas crossed his arms as he looked at Tony, thinking about it as well.

"I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables," Tony continued.

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked.

"He's a spy," Tony answered. "Captain, he's 'the' spy. His secrets have secrets."

He put a small thing that they couldn't see too well in his mouth.

"It's bugging him, too," Tony continued, gesturing to Bruce. "Isn't it?"

"Uhhh..." Bruce said, in response, looking at them. He then waved his arms, gesturing that he didn't want to talk about it.

"Bruce?" Sora asked.

"I just want to finish my work here," Bruce said, gesturing to the scepter. "And..."

"Doctor?" Steve asked.

Bruce sighed out and removed his glasses.

"'A warm light for all mankind,'" he said. "Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube."

"I heard it," Steve said.

"We all did," Sora agreed.

"Well," Bruce continued as he looked at Tony. "I think that was meant for you."

Tony held out his bag, and Bruce took one of what he and Vanitas could now see were some blueberries.

"Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower," Bruce continued. "It was still all over the news."

"The Stark Tower?" Steve asked. "That big, ugly..."

He stopped at the condescending look Tony was giving him.

"...building in New York?" Steve finished.

"Uh, we don't get a lot of your news where we're from," Sora told them, confused. "What tower are you talking about?"

"A building that I built in New York," Tony told him.

"It's powered by an arc reactor," Bruce explained. "A self sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?"

"It's just the prototype," Tony said. He then looked at Steve. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."

"That's nice," Sora said, even though he didn't completely understand how energy could be clean.

"So why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project?" Bruce asked, looking from Steve to Tony. "What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

"These are very good questions we should be worrying about," Vanitas said.

Tony started talking as he walked over to a new screen.

"I should probably look into that once my decryption programme finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files."

"I'm sorry," Steve said as Tony walked in front of him. "Did you say..."

"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge," Tony said, looking down on a handheld screen."

"Who?" Sora and Vanitas asked.

"Just A Rather Very Intelligent System," Tony told them before he calmly continued. "In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide."

"Blueberry?" he asked very calmly as he offered the bag to Steve and Sora.

Sora took one as Steve stared at Tony.

"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around," Steve said.

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence?" Tony asked Steve, who looked to the side, annoyed. "Historically, not awesome."

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up," Steve said, looking at Tony. "This is a man who means to start a war and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed."

Sora nodded in agreement.

"We have orders," Steve continued. "We should follow them."

"Been there," Vanitas interjected. "Not always a good idea."

"Yeah," Tony agreed. "Following's not really my style."

He put another blueberry in his mouth while Steve continued to look at him, annoyed.

"And you're all about style, aren't you?" he asked.

"Of the people in this room," Tony asked, waving a hand. "Which one is A, wearing a spangly outfit, and, B, not of use?"

Vanitas chuckled at Steve's expanse, while Sora looked at him, annoyed.

"Steve," Bruce said, garnering the man's attention. "Tell me none of this smells a little funky to you."

Steve just looked at the two before he looked to the door.

"Just find the Cube," he told them as we walked towards the door with Sora behind him.

Steve stopped in the hallway after the door closed behind them, confusing Sora.

"What's up?" Sora asked.

"Nothing," Steve told him. "Just head back to the conference room. I'll be there in a little bit."

Steve then started walking down the other way of the hallway.

"Liar," Sora said as he started walking towards the main room.

"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" Tony asked Bruce back in the lab.

"I wonder if they should have kept him on ice," he said as Bruce walked towards another screen, trying to find the Tesseract.

"The guy's not wrong about Loki," Bruce interjected. "He does have the jump on us."

"What he's got is an Acme dynamite kit," Tony said, walking towards Bruce.

Vanitas laughed at the mental image of Loki and Wile E Coyote trying to place a trap for the Roadrunner.

"It's gonna blow up in his face," Tony continued, walking towards the console from earlier. "And I'm gonna be there when it does."

"Yeah," Bruce said. "I'll read all about it."

Vanitas walked over to the two men as they worked on their screens.

"Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us," Tony said.

"We could use the backup," Vanitas added.

Bruce spared a small chuckle.

"You see," he said. "I don't get a suit of armor."

"Neither do I," Vanitas commented. "I just wear a shirt and jeans. Really gotta update my wardrobe."

"That's you," Bruce said. "I'm exposed. Like a nerve. Like a nightmare."

"You know," Tony said. "I've got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl its way into my heart."

"This stops it," he continued, patting the center of his chest before he started walking towards Bruce.

"This little circle of light," Tony continued. "It's part of me now, not just armor."

He stopped so he was now standing in front of Bruce, looking at the man through the screen.

"It's a terrifying privilege," Tony continued.

"But you can control it," Bruce interjected.

"Because I learned how," Tony said.

"It's different," Bruce insisted.

"Hey," Tony said. "I read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you."

"So," Bruce said. "You're saying that the Hulk... The other guy saved my life? That's nice."

"You call the other guy the Hulk?" Vanitas asked. "No offense, but that's not really that clever."

"Wasn't going for clever," Bruce told Vanitas before he turned towards Tony again. "It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?"

"I guess we'll find out," Tony said, before walking back to his console.

"You may not enjoy that," Bruce said.

"And you just might," Tony said.

"As long as we're sharing battle scars..." Vanitas said.

"You're gonna tell us how you got that?" Tony asked, pointing at Vanitas' face.

"The Keyblade that Sora has?" Vanitas asked them, making sure they were all aware. He continued once they nodded. "There used to be more. One of them unfortunately exploded right in my face."

The two men winced at what that could have felt like, remembering their own instances of being right next to explosions.

"Since that thing is the Ultimate Key," Vanitas continued. "It did a lot more than just give me the scar. My life force and memories are gone."

"Yeah, you mentioned that," Bruce said. "Now you can't heal or anything?"

"My heart doesn't even beat," Vanitas corrected him. "My pulse is inactive. I'm dead, but I'm not. I'm somewhere in between. I can't feel pain, eat, sleep, or even get drunk."

"That is not good," Tony said. "I can't even imagine never being able to get drunk."

"You have no idea," Vanitas agreed. "It's practically hell. But... it does come in handy."

"How?" Bruce asked.

Vanitas turned to look at the scientist.

"If I can't feel anything," he said. "That means that I can keep fighting. I can keep fighting until I find the person responsible for this. Then, once I find him, I'm gonna make him reverse this, and put a bullet in his fucking head."

"I respect a good bout of revenge," Tony said. "But you need to be smart about it. The kid back there seems like he wants to help you out. And maybe we can help find a cure for you."

That's nice," Vanitas said. "But no offense, I don't think there's anything you guys can do. This goes way beyond the knowledge of this world, even the knowledge of most worlds. The sentiment is nice, but it's kind of pointless."

He sighed. "As for the kid, he kind of his helping me. I have this theory that he can help me find the guy I'm after, and maybe even help me in his own way."

"Does he know how to?" Tony asked.

"No," Vanitas admitted. "But only because I also don't know. Only time will tell."

"It will," Bruce agreed. "But once it does, will you still be you once you're done?"

"What?" Vanitas asked, genuinely confused.

"Earlier, you seemed really chummy," Bruce said. "Like you wouldn't mind having a few friends. You didn't seem like someone who would commit homicide without a second thought. It seems like this determination to kill this guy, it's changing you into someone else."

"Someone that you probably don't want to be," Tony agreed.

Vanitas looked at both men, pondering their words. After a few seconds of silence, he walked towards another console and started messing with the screen.

"Let's just find the damn Cube," he said, trying to change the subject.

Tony and Bruce shrugged and went back to work. While he didn't say anything, the two knew their words had an impact on the young one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly forgot what JARVIS stands for, so I had to base it off of memory


	4. Making new friends- Sora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Vanitas messes around in the lab with the science bros, Sora tries to be friendly with other members of the team

After separating from Steve, Sora walked back to the main area of the helicarrier where everyone was on the computers. He wanted to talk to someone, but he didn't know who. Fury wasn't an option as he was busy watching over everyone, in Vanitas' words, "like a boss." Maria Hill wouldn't work because she also looked busy with very important work. Looking around, Sora caught sight of Thor with Phil Coulson, looking at a picture of a woman on a screen. Interested, Sora walked towards them, catching part of their conversation.

"As soon as Loki took the doctor," Phil told Thor. "We moved Jane Foster. They've got an excellent observatory in Tromso. She was asked to consult there very suddenly yesterday."

He looked up at Thor, then back down at the picture.

"Handsome fee," he continued. "Private plane, very remote."

Phil looked back up at Thor.

"She'll be safe," he finished.

"Thank you," Thor said, looking at the image.

"Someone you care about?" Sora asked.

Thor looked at Sora, a little surprised at the young boy's sudden appearance. His surprise dissipated quickly as he continued to look at the image.

"Very much," Thor confirmed. "I want her to stay safe, so I made sure she was away from the situation. I can't imagine what I would do if she was hurt."

Sora stared at Thor, taking in his words. He then looked at the image of the woman, with a feeling of forlorn.

"I know the feeling," he said.

Thor patted the boy's shoulder in thanks.

"It's no accident, Loki taking Erik Selvig," Thor told Phil. "I dread what he plans for him once he's done. Erik is a good man."

"We'll find him," Sora said. "Vanitas and I might have ended up here by accident, but we'll help as much as we can."

Sora gripped his fist in front of his chest and nodded his head in determination.

"Thank you, Keyblade wielder," Thor said. "If you are as powerful as the legend says, then I know we won't have too much trouble."

"Well..." Sora said, a little embarrassed. "I've only had a little training, but I've handled worse with my friends by my side."

"I have to ask," Phil started, crossing his arms at Sora. "How old are you?"

"Fourteen," Sora said, as if it was the normalest thing in the world.

"And you just have this huge responsibility placed on your shoulders because of a giant key?" Phil asked.

"The Keyblade chooses it's master," Thor told Phil. "And it chose this young lad."

"So it's my responsibility," Sora said. "As long as my friends have my back, I can save the worlds."

The two nodded their heads.

"But how do you know so much about the Keyblade, Mr Thor?" Sora asked.

"Just Thor," Thor said. "And my father heard the legends of the Keyblade on Asgard. One said the Keybearer saved the world, the other said he brought wright and ruin upon it. We never knew how to react to a Keybearer before because we had never encountered one before. But there were legends of the so called 'Master of Masters' well before my time."

"'Master of Masters'?" Sora asked, confused.

"I do not know, either," Thor admitted. "They are old legends that haven't been learned in these modern times."

"We've actually encountered someone who could wield a Keyblade before here on earth," Phil interjected. "If it helps."

"Really?" Sora asked, suddenly excited.

"Back in the 90's," Phil explained. "He arrived on accident and went on a big excursion with director Fury. Geez, he was there when the director lost his eye."

"Whoa..." Sora and Thor said, genuinely impressed.

"Do you remember his name?" Sora asked.

"No," Phil admitted, crossing his arms. "I didn't see him much, or even get to meet him. I just remember a guy in black, with black hair. I never learned his name. If it helps, the director referred to him as 'V.'"

Sora just stared at the man. The dark hair, and the name V? Even if he wasn't the brightest, he could put two and two together.

"Anyway," Phil said, turning towards Thor. "Selvig talks about you a lot."

He started walking past and around Thor.

"You changed his life," Phil continued as Thor and Sora started walking with him. "You changed everything around here."

"They were better as they were," Thor told him. "We pretend on Asgard that we're more advanced but... we come here, battling like bilge snipe."

"Like what?" Phil asked as they stopped near a computer.

"Bilge snipe," Thor said. He gestured with his hands as he tried explaining. "You know, huge, scaly, big antlers."

"You don't have those?" he asked.

"No, I don't think so," Phil answered.

"Well, they are repulsive," Thor admitted. "And they trample everything in their path."

Thor walked a few feet in front of them, so he was facing one of the many windows. He stared out at the night sky, thinking about things.

"My world is just a few islands," Sora said. "We have a simple life, but it can be a little underwhelming sometimes. I originally left just because I wanted to see other worlds. Didn't expect I'd have to save them."

"That's life, isn't it?" Phil asked. "Wanting something simple, but then getting something huge instead."

"Yeah," Sora agreed.

"What's your island like?" Phil asked, intrigued. "You don't seem that different from a normal human. Aside the fact that you can summon a giant key, of course."

"Like I said, simple," Sora said. "It's kind of like the world here, but a lot less technology. I don't exactly understand all the computers around here. OR the concept of a city so giant."

Phil chuckled. "You'll get used to it, kid."

Phil patted Sora on the back, then the two turned towards Thor, who was waiting patiently for them to finish. Surprising, since people weren't always like that.

"When I first came to Earth," he explained. "Loki's rage followed me here, and your people paid the price. And now, again."

He looked down in shame, then looked up again.

"In my youth, I courted war," Thor admitted.

"War hasn't started yet," Fury declared, garnering their attention.

"You think you could make Loki tell us where the Tesseract is?" he asked, standing on the top stair near Thor.

"I do not know," Thor admitted. "Loki's mind is far afield. It's not just power he craves, its vengeance, upon me. There's no pain would prise his need from him."

"A lot of guys think that," Fury said as he walked down the stairs. "Until the pain starts."

"What are you asking me to do?" Thor asked as Fury leaned down so he was eye level with the man.

"I'm asking," Fury said. "What are you prepared to do?"

"Loki is a prisoner," Thor insisted.

"Then why do I feel like he's the only person on this boat that wants to be here?" Fury asked.

Thor just looked at Fury, thinking about the man's words.

"Uh..." Sora said, uncomfortable. "I'd like to see my friends now."

"I'll take you to them," Phil said, grabbing the young boy by his shoulder.

The agent guided Sora away from the two man and down the same hallway that led to the lab. They walked down the hallway, knowing that something big was coming pretty soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Switching around perspectives for these ones a bit since there can be a lot more character interactions between Kingdom Hearts characters and characters from the MCU. The perspectives will still follow the ones from the Kingdom Hearts characters, since we've already gotten the experience from the MCU character's perspective, and it'll be fresh in the Kingdom Hearts characters' minds. Plus, all the teases what with the Master of Masters, and Sora figuring out the truth of Vanitas on his own... Hey, if Nomura can have fun with his characters, I can, too


	5. Check ups and Confrontations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Sora checks up in the med bay to see if Donald and Goofy are okay, there's a giant debate in the labs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stuck home sick so i figured, what the hell? Why not add a chapter?

Phil led Sora to the med bay where they quickly found Donald and Goofy laying in beds. Kind of hard to miss them since they were the only human sized duck and dog in the entire place, after all. Sora pulled up a chair and sat in front of their beds, watching as they slept on.

"Are they okay?" he asked a nearby nurse.

"Well..." the nurse said as she looked at the clipboard she was holding. "It felt really weird doing examinations on a giant duck and dog, but we got it done. You said your ship's computer exploded in this one's face?"

She gestured to Donald and Sora nodded.

"Well, it burned him a bit," the nurse said. "But nothing too bad. As for this one..."

She gestured to Goofy.

"He hit his head pretty hard," the nurse said. "But based off of the sturdiness of his skull, it seems like it wasn't the first time. The crash, though, seems to have caused he most damage. The impact damaged them both pretty bad. Luckily, from the looks of things, they should recover after a few hours of rest and treatment."

"Thank you," Sora said as he nodded his head.

"You're welcome," the nurse said before she walked out of the room.

"The four of you have been through a lot, so far," Phil assessed as Sora looked at his friends again.

"A lot," Sora confirmed. "But we've managed to stick together the whole time, so I think we're okay."

"Teamwork makes the dream work," Phil suggested.

They both laughed at that.

"Yeah, I guess," Sora said. "I am fulfilling my dream of seeing other worlds. But... I wanted to achieve it with my friends, Riku and Kairi."

"And what happened?" Phil asked, genuinely concerned for the boy.

"Kairi disappeared," Sora said, sadly. "Right when the island was lost. I haven't found her once during this whole trip. And Riku..."

Sora sighed out.

"He's lost it," he continued. "Before we ended up here, we were swallowed by a giant whale... long story."

Phil had looked confused when Sora said "giant whale."

"And while we were there, he did a big rant about how the heart of a boy named Pinocchio could help find the heart of another," Sora continued. "Something's going on, and RIku has lost sight of who he is. He's fallen in with the wrong crowd, and I don't know what's gonna happen."

"Don't worry," Phil assured him. "You and your friends seem capable. Everything should turn out okay."

Sora nodded at that.

"To be honest," Phil said. "The thing that's surprising me most here is that Disney characters exist and are actually world traveling guardians."

The two laughed at that, unaware that back in the lab, Vanitas, Tony, and Bruce were finally getting into SHIELD's confidential files. They were also unaware of Maria Hill and Fury figuring out that Stark had placed a virus on their mainframes. They were especially unaware of Steve looting around in SHIELD crates and finding various HYDRA weapons.

All of a sudden, Phil received a message on his ear piece. He confirmed to someone and turned towards Sora.

"You're needed in the lab," he said. "Can you find your way there?"

"Yeah," Sora assured. "I've got a bit of an understanding of the place now."

Back in the lab, Vanitas, Bruce, and Tony were interrupted when Nick Fury walked in.

"What are you doing, Mr Stark?" the spy asked.

"Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you," Tony answered as he sat on the table.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract," Fury told him.

"We are," Bruce said. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now."

"I didn't understand jack shit," Vanitas commented. "But we got it done."

"When we get a hit," Bruce continued. He pointed at the monitor on the other side of the room, which Fury looked at. "We'll have a location within half a mile."

"Yeah," Tony said. "Then you get the Cube back. No muss, no fuss."

He looked at the monitor next to them as new information came up.

"What is 'Phase 2'?" Tony asked, garnering back Fury's attention.

"It seems really secretive from the looks of it," Vanitas commented.

Steve answered their questions by suddenly appearing and putting a high tech blaster on a table.

"Phase 2 is SHIELD uses the Cube to make weapons," he told them. He looked at Tony. "Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me."

"Rogers," Fury said as he started walking towards Steve. "We gathered everything related to the Tesseract."

While he was talking, Tony stood up off of the table and started working on the monitor again.

"This does not mean that we're making..."

"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony called out, getting both Steve and Fury's attention.

"What were you lying?" he asked as he showed the monitor to them, which had a small presentation of the gun on the table being digitally assembled.

"Busted," Vanitas exclaimed.

"I was wrong, Director," Steve said as Thor, Natasha, and Sora walked into the lab. "The world hasn't changed a bit."

"Did you know about this?" Bruce asked Natasha.

"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?" Natasha asked him.

"I was in Calcutta," Bruce laughed. "I was pretty well removed."

"Loki is manipulating you," Natasha told him.

"And you've been doing what, exactly?" Bruce asked her.

"Why is everyone manipulating everyone else?" Sora asked the entire group.

Vanitas and Thor both shrugged their shoulders.

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you," Natasha told Bruce as she walked towards him.

"Yes," Bruce said, walking a little forwards. "And I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy."

He grabbed the monitor and gestured to it with his glasses.

"I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction," Bruce demanded to Fury.

"Because of him," Fury said, pointing at Thor.

"Me?" Thor asked, curiously.

Tony, Vanitas, and Sora also looked at Fury, curious at his claim.

"Last year," Fury said. "Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."

He looked towards Sora and Vanitas.

"And we can't always count on Japanese looking, American voiced, short guys with giant keys to help us every time there's trouble," Fury continued.

"I'd resent that if all three details weren't true," Vanitas said with his arms crossed.

"Same," Sora said, using this remark to support his theory.

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor assured Fury.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you?" Fury asked him. "And you're not the only threat. We were lucky back in the 90's when he showed up and helped us out."

He gestured to Vanitas, but Vanitas just shrugged his shoulders in confusion. He still didn't remember the man.

"The world's filling up with people who can't be matched," Fury said, facing the front window that allowed them to see the sunrise. Tony stood near it, still looking at Fury with his arms crossed. "That can't be controlled."

"Like you controlled the Cube?" Steve countered.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it," Thor told Fury. "And his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A higher form?" Steve asked.

"The kind that draws confrontation," Vanitas told him. "Practically tells other people, 'Here we are, come invade us because we want to fight.' Not the best thing you want for your world."

"For once," Sora said, crossing his arms. "I agree with Vanitas."

"Thank you," Vanitas said, nodding his head to Sora.

"You forced our hand," Fury told Thor. "We had to come up with something."

"A nuclear deterrent," Tony counteracted. "Because that always calms everything right down."

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark," Fury told Tony.

"I'm sure if he still made weapons," Steve said, walking towards Tony. "Stark would be neck deep..."

"Hold on," Tony interjected. "How is this now about me?"

"Fair question," Vanitas said. "I don't think he did anything."

"I'm sorry," Steve said, sarcastically. "Isn't everything about you?"

"I thought humans were more evolved than this," Thor demanded Fury.

"Most of us are," Vanitas assured him. "Some don't evolve at all."

"Excuse me," Fury told Thor. "Did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?"

He then turned to Vanitas.

"Did we lose control and try to fight a Norse god with our bare hands?" he asked.

"Low blow, dick," Vanitas said as Steve and Tony started arguing.

"You treat your champions with such distrust," Thor managed to say to Fury over the arguing.

"Are you boys really that naive?" Natasha asked over Fury's remark. "SHIELD monitors potential threats."

"Captain America's on threat watch?" Bruce asked.

"We all are," Natasha told him.

"Wait, you're on that list?" Tony asked Steve as part of their fight. "Are you above or below angry bees?"

"Stark, so held me, God," Steve said as none of them noticed the blue orb on Loki's scepter start to glow. "If you make one more wisecrack..."

"Threat!" Tony exclaimed. "Verbal threat. I feel threatened."

"I got your back, dude," Vanitas assured Tony.

The arguing went on for a little while before they let anyone get in a remark.

"You speak of control," Thor interjected to Fury. "Yet you court chaos."

"That's his M.O, isn't it?" Bruce asked, garnering everyone's attention. "I mean, what are we, a team? No, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos."

"Sometimes those are the best mixtures," Vanitas claimed, at which Sora looked at him, confused.

"Not in this case," Bruce said. "We're a time bomb."

"You need to step away," Fury told the doctor.

"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony asked, grabbing Steve's shoulder.

"You know damn well why," Steve said, pushing off Tony's hand. "Back off!"

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me," Tony said in a tough voice.

"Kinky," Vanitas joked, at which no one laughed.

"Yeah," Steve said, walking around Tony. "Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," Tony said, confidently, as he looked Steve in the face.

Natasha, Vanitas, and Sora all nodded, thinking "True."

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you," Steve told Tony. "I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire," Tony countered.

"Seems like a viable solution," Sora offered.

Steve smirked at Tony.

"Always a way out," he said, at which his smirk disappeared. "You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero?" Tony asked. "Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

Steve looked at Tony for a second with the stink eye.

"Put on the suit," he said. "Let's go a few rounds."

Thor laughed, garnering their attention.

"You people are so petty and tiny," he said.

"Hey!" Sora and Vanitas both exclaimed.

"Yeah, this is a team," Bruce sarcastically remarked.

"Agent Romanoff," Fury told Natasha. "Would you escort Dr. Banner back to his..."

"Where?" Bruce exclaimed, a bit more forceful than usual. "You rented my room."

"The cell was just in case..." Fury started to say before Bruce interrupted him.

"In case you needed to kill me," he said. "But you can't. I know, I tried."

Sora and Vanitas both widened their eyes at that. Everyone else just stared at Bruce as he continued.

"I got low," he told them. "I didn't see an end. So, I put a bullet in my mouth, and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good."

He looked at Natasha as he picked up something he couldn't see. "Until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk. You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?"

Both Fury and Natasha reached for their guns in their holsters.

"Bruce," Sora said, garnering the man's attention. "Why are you holding the scepter?"

Bruce stopped and looked down, just realizing he was holding it in his left hand.

On the other side of the room, the computer scanning for the Tesseract beeped, signifying it had a location. Everyone's attention turned towards it, so Bruce put down the scepter back on the table.

"Got it," Fury said.

"Sorry, kids," Bruce said as he walked across the room, towards the monitor. "You don't get to see my party trick after all."

"Don't expect a tip, then," Vanitas joked, crossing his arms.

"You located the Tesseract?" Thor asked as Natasha and Sora followed Bruce to the monitor.

"I could get there fastest," Tony challenged.

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard," Thor insisted. "No human is a match for it."

"You're not going alone," Steve said, grabbing Tony by his arm.

"You're gonna stop me?" Tony asked, smacking off the man's arm.

"Put on the suit," Steve said as Tony got close to him. "Let's find out."

"I'm not afraid to hit an old man," Tony challenged.

"Put on the suit," Steve demanded in a tough voice.

"You guys look so cute together," Vanitas joked.

Bruce took off his glasses as he read where the Tesseract was.

"Oh, my god," he said, looking up towards Tony and Steve.

Before anyone could say anything else, a giant explosion hit the side of the helicarrier. The fire erupted through the center of the floor, knocking Steve, Tony, and Vanitas near the side entrance, Sora, Natasha, and Bruce through the back window, Thor near the other side entrance, and Fury back near the table that held the scepter. Natasha, Bruce, and Sora fell into the lower levels of the ship as the explosions shook around the helicarrier.

Back in the lab, Steve, Tony, and Vanitas regrouped and looked at each other through the smoke.

"Put on the suit," Steve told Tony, more with determination.

"Yeah," Tony agreed as the two of them stood up and started running out the door.

"Wait up!" Vanitas yelled as he tried putting on his jacket and sling while running.

Things were getting hairy, fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part was kind of fun to write, looking back at Endgame and thinking how Steve and Tony proved each other wrong with their claims here


	6. Defending the helicarrier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sora, Natasha, and Thor have to deal with the arise of the Hulk, while Vanitas, Steve, and Tony deal with the turbines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is getting pretty fun to do

After shaking off the blast, Fury pressed into his earpiece.

"Hill!" he coughed.

"External detonation," Maria explained as she worked at a monitor in the main room. "Number three engine is down."

"We've been hit," someone called out as Maria started to walk to her right.

"Can we get it running?" Maria asked to anybody.

"We've got a fire in engine three!" someone else announced.

"Talk to me," Maria said as she looked on another person's monitor.

"Turbine looks mostly intact," the man told her. "But it's impossible to get out there to make repairs while we're in the air."

"If we lose one more engine, we won't be," Maria said, ungently. She then spoke through the earpiece. "Somebody's got to get outside and patch that engine."

Fury heard this.

"Stark, you copy that?" he asked.

"I'm on it," Tony told him.

"Coulson," Fury then announced. "Initiate defensive lockdown in the detention section then get to the armory."

Phil ran through the main room with the intention of doing just that.

"Romanoff?" Fury asked as he left the lab.

Sora and Natasha had landed with Bruce in one of the more internal parts of the helicarrier. A connection of pipes had trapped Natasha's leg, and Sora got up to try to help her out. Unfortunately, he was only fourteen (and less than five feet tall) and very little upper body strength. Bruce was next to them, slowly breathing. Eventually, Natasha put her hand to her earpiece.

"We're okay," she told Fury.

In response to this, Bruce did his best to not spazz out.

"We're okay, right?" Natasha asked him.

"I hope so," Sora said as he continued to try to lift the pipes.

Meanwhile, Steve, Tony, and Vanitas ran through the various parts of the helicarrier until they separated.

"Engine three," Tony told Steve. "We'll meet you there."

Steve continued running towards the engine, while Vanitas followed Tony down the new hallway. Tony pulled out a remote and pressed a button. On the other side of the room, a metal casing opened up, revealing his Iron Man suit. With another push of a button, the lights in the eyes and chest turned on.

"That's awesome," Vanitas said in literal awe.

"You got anything that'll let you fly?" Tony asked.

"Just these," Vanitas said, looking down at his sneakers.

He lifted up one foot to show the small rockets on the bottom of the soles.

"Those'll work," Tony said.

Meanwhile, Bruce was still doing his best not let Hulk take over since he was next to Sora and Natasha, but he was fighting a losing battle.

"Doctor?" Natasha asked.

"Stay calm, Bruce," Sora said as he made another attempt at the pipes.

"You got to fight it," Natasha said as she made an attempt to yank out her foot. "This is just what Loki wants."

"Think of happy thoughts," Sora urgently suggested. "Puppies. Kittens. Ice cream."

"We're going to be okay," Natasha tried assuring him as two men tried running towards them through the hallways. "Listen to me."

"Are you hurt?" one of the guys called out to them.

Natasha frantically waved at them. They quickly understood the message and ran back down the hallway.

"We're going to be okay," Natasha tried assuring Bruce again as he kept grunting on his elbows and knees. "All right? I swear on my life, I will get you out of this."

She was softly tapping the floor with her fist to emphasize her point.

"I'll help, too," Sora offered. "I'm very good at helping people."

"Yeah," Natasha agreed. "You will walk away and never ever..."

"Your life!?" a merge of Bruce's voice and a deeper voice came out of his mouth as he looked at her.

Sora jumped in surprise at the new development. Bruce was on his knees, and some of his neck was turning green. Sora and Natasha could only watch in shock as the green travelled up his neck and down his hands, and he started to stretch through his shirt. He stepped to the side and fell off the grate they were on, onto the lower floor.

"Jesus," Sora whispered as he frantically but quietly increased his efforts to take the pipes off of Natasha's foot.

Bruce screamed as his green body ripped apart his shirt, and stretched apart his pants. He looked over his shoulder at the two of them with sympathetic eyes.

"Bruce," Natasha whispered.

He then threw himself back onto his hands as the Hulk finished taking over. Hulk roared out, stood up, and walked forwards, panting against a big, nearby container. He then roared as he crushed it, releasing smoke.

Natasha then yanked her foot out from underneath the poles, causing them to hit the grated floor loudly. She jumped off the grate, and was quickly followed by Sora.

"You couldn't have done that sooner?" he asked before he turned to see that she was observing the Hulk.

"Whoa..." he then said, taking in the giant, muscular, green man.

The Hulk turned around to look at them over his shoulder, and they could instantly see the rage in his eyes. They turned around and started running up the stairs just as the Hulk yelled out and charged after them.

Hulk grabbed at the stairs, but Natasha flipped over an over head railing beforehand. The green man pulled out the stairs right below Sora, who looked down in fear. Natasha reached down, and Sora quickly took her hand. She pulled the boy up and they got into the vents. They quickly crawled through as Hulk tried ripping grates from below them.

Together, Sora and Natasha jumped through the furthest grate and landed in front of another set of stairs. They quickly and quietly ran down the stairs and ducked below a bar as Hulk roared behind them.

"I'm half tempted to say a word that V really likes to use," Sora muttered to Natasha as they ran through the hallways.

"Go ahead," Natasha whispered back. "I won't judge you."

Meanwhile, Steve had opened a port leading into one of the rooms connected to the damaged turbine and ran out to part of the area that had been blown up. He looked out into the open, looking for the others.

"Stark!" he yelled out. "Jordan!"

Steve waited for an answer from them as he surveyed the damage to this part of the helicarrier.

"Guys, I'm here!" he tried again.

"Good," Tony said as the two of them flew into his view.

Vanitas, for once, looked excited as he flew in front of Steve.

"The one part about this lifestyle that I actually like," he laughed to the man.

"Let's see what we got," Tony said as he flew into the engine in his suit. "I got to get this superconducting coolant system back online before I can access the rotors, work on dislodging the debris."

Vanitas and Steve just looked at him with confused faces.

"Did you understand any of that?" Steve muttered to Vanitas.

"Not a word," Vanitas muttered back.

Tony pressed into some of the mechanics of the wall and looked at the other two.

"I need you to get to that engine control panel," he told Steve, gesturing to a nearby control panel. "And tell me which relays are in overload position."

Steve scanned the area until he found the control panel. Getting that Steve understood, Tony flew into some of the gears once again as Steve started to parkour his way to the panel. He leaped across the various parts of the blown apart wall until he walked into the small area with the panel in the wall. While Tony flew into the turbine, Vanitas floated along the side as Steve made his way across.

"If you needed it," he told Steve. "I could have helped you across."

"Thanks," Steve sarcastically said he pulled out the panel.

"Jesus christ," Vanitas commented, surprised. "This is why I work with Gummi Ships."

"What does it look like in there?" Tony asked Steve over the intercom.

"It seems to run on some form of electricity," Steve commented, waving his hand.

"Well, you're not wrong," Tony told him.

Meanwhile, Sora and Natasha continued to sneak their way through the halls, making sure they were quiet, and wouldn't alert Hulk. They stopped and stood pressed against a part of the wall with baited breaths as the light was briefly covered and uncovered. With a small gulp, Sora followed Natasha, who had her handgun drawn. They walked down the next part of hallway before they were stopped by the Hulk roaring at them.

Natasha pointed her gun at a pipe above the green giant and shot it, expelling smoke into his face. Hulk stood up straighter, knocking aside the pipe, expelling more gas. With him distracted, Sora and Natasha ran down the hallways, away from the giant.

"Sorry about that," Natasha told Sora. This was due to the fact that she had shot her Glock so close to the young boy's ears.

"No problem," Sora told her, understanding what she was talking about. "I'm a lot closer to Vanitas when he fires his."

The two ran through a new part of the hallway with glass on either side of them. After a few seconds, the Hulk started running after them, right through the small walls. In very little time, the Hulk caught up to them as they reached the end of the hallway. He knocked them aside, and they flew crashing into a nearby wall. They grunted as the Hulk lost his balance and fell into a separate wall.

The Hulk walked towards the two and raised his hand. Just as he was about to attack them, Thor tackled him through the nearby grated wall.

Sora coughed before he stood up and pulled a Mega-Potion out of his pocket. He threw it into the air, and green energy appeared before his and Natasha's heads.

"I'm gonna help Thor," Sora announced as he ran through the crashed wall.

"Sora," Natasha called out as she stood up off of the wall.

Thor and Hulk had crashed in the hanger, surprising a bunch of the people in there. The two stood up and faced each other with their fists ready. Sora ran up near them and summoned his Keyblade, standing in his battle stance.

Hulk roared as he took in his new foes. He missed two punches at Thor. In retaliation, Thor punched Hulk in the face, making him twist around from the impact. Sora then rushed in and started attacking Hulk with Sonic Blade, hitting the green giant multiple times. Hulk then spun around and tried to attack at Thor, but the god ducked. Hulk then tried downward punching Thor, but he caught it with his hands. With visible strain, Thor held Hulk's fist up.

"We are not your enemies, Banner," Thor told him.

"We're you're friends, Bruce," Sora tried adding.

"Try to think!" Thor finished.

Instead, Hulk lifted up his arm, which Thor dangled from. Hulk then punched Thor, throwing him across the hanger, through some crates.

"Whoa," Sora said, looking up at Hulk in surprise.

Meanwhile, Tony had finally blasted through the mess of the vent and stood on a ledge overlooking the turbine.

"Okay, the relays are intact," Steve told him over the intercom.

"What's our next move?" Steve asked as he pressed the grate back into the wall.

"Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won't re-engage without a jump," Tony told them. "I'm gonna have to get in there and push."

"That is the coolest thing I have ever heard," Vanitas said over the intercom.

"But if that thing gets up to speed," Steve interjected. "You'll get shredded."

"Let me," Vanitas offered. "I'm already dead."

"Sorry, kid," Tony said. "Even though you have these weird abilities, I don't think even you would survive being in there."

"But anyway," Tony continued to Steve. "That stator control unit can reverse the polarity long enough to disengage maglev and that could..."

"Speak English!" Steve yelled.

Tony paused, and Vanitas could actually hear the man reprimanding the other man in his head.

"You see that red lever?" Tony asked.

The two on the outside turned to see the red lever on the other side of a gap, onto a different ledge.

"It will slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out," Tony explained to them. "Stand by it. Wait for my word."

The two leaped across the gap and landed on the floor grate, standing ready at the lever.

Back in the hanger, Hulk had thrown Sora and Thor through some more crates, knocking the two onto the ground. Thor slowly got up on one knee, and looked forwards, angrily. He wiped his nose with his left hand and smirked a cocky smirk at Hulk's roar.

"Why are you smiling?" Sora asked, genuinely confused as Thor held out his right hand.

After a few seconds of nothing happening, Thor's hammer smashed through nearby crates and into Thor's hand, just as Hulk tried charging at the blonde from behind. He caught it, and turned around, swinging at Hulk just as the giant caught up. Thor hit him in the face with his hammer, knocking Hulk into a nearby SHIELD plane.

"Whoa..." Sora once again said, surprised.

Hulk pushed his way out of the plane, and shook in utter rage. He ripped a wing off of the plane and threw it towards Sora and Thor, who slid against the floor to block it. Thor then threw his hammer, which caused Hulk to fly back against the ground as he tried to catch it.

Hulk lay on his back and roared as he tried to pull his hand out from underneath the handle. He roared and got on his knees, pulling with both his hands to get his right hand free. His feet even pressed into the floor as he pulled as hard as he could.

Thor and Sora ran up to him, at which Thor kicked the giant in the face, and Sora launched up Thunder, which came down and hit him. Hulk dazedly fell back as his hands came out from under the hammer. Thor then picked it up and held the wrap underneath around Hulk's neck. Hulk roared out as Thor held him in a choke hold.

Sora stood in front and blasted fire at Hulk, which was quickly extinguished as Hulk stood up and tried to shake Thor off of his back. Hulk jumped up with Thor on his back, and Sora watched as they jumped out of his reach.

"Vanitas and I may be in way over our heads," Sora muttered.

After standing still for a few seconds, Sora an back through the hanger towards the hallway, now wanting to find Natasha.

Meanwhile, Steve and Vanitas stood ready while Tony finished lasering through the debris in the turbine. He had broken the debris and sent it flying through the air. While they were waiting, Steve and Vanitas took notice of people wearing assault armor in a lower level come out carrying heavy weapons. One pulled the pin out of a grenade and prepared to throw it.

Steve leaped across and knocked the grenade aside through the air, where it exploded into a wall. He landed in front of another mercenary, and kicked him into a wall, knocking him unconscious. He then punched another mercenary, knocked his gun to the ground, and threw him out the open part. Vanitas hovered near the soldier, and looked at him impressed.

"That was cold," he commented. "Nice."

They were distracted as a new mercenary showed up in the hallway and shot at them. Steve threw something at the mercenary which hit the wall, distracting the man long enough for Steve to leap out of the way. While Steve jumped back onto the upper walkways of the area, Vanitas flew around, dodging the bullets from the mercenary's gun.

"Ha!" Vanitas laughed in a cocky manner. "You guys are worse than stormtroopers, because you can't hit..."

He was cut off by the bullets hitting one of his sneakers. This caused the gears to short circuit, which caused Vanitas to fly around wildly as the mercenary continued to shoot at him, some of the shots now hitting him.

"This is what I get for building rocket shoes in a garage!" Vanitas screamed as he flew around.

Vanitas ended up crashing into the wall next to the red lever, and he fell to the ground, bruised.

Steve, meanwhile, had grabbed an assault rifle and shot it at the mercenary. The two then did a stand off, briefly shooting at each other, each of them stopping after a second, just standing ready.

Meanwhile, Sora walked around the inner hallways, looking around for Natasha. After a few seconds of searching, he heard her voice.

"This is Agent Romanoff," he heard her say. "I copy."

Sora heard her ruffling around to a different part. Sora decided to follow the noise and ran after her.

Meanwhile, Tony was doing what he promised and got into the turbines and was getting ready to push.

"Stark," Fury told him over the intercom. "We're losing altitude."

"Yeah, I noticed," Tony told him.

He engaged his rockets and started flying forwards, pushing the turbine of the engine, slowly turning it on.

Outside, Steve continued trying to shoot at the mercenary. After a little more of a standoff between the two, the mercenary had forced Steve backwards more until he slipped on the broken floor grating. He flew out into the air, but managed to catch onto a loose cable. He dangled by the cable, doing his best to stay on the helicarrier.

Meanwhile, back in the inner parts of the helicarrier, a man carrying a bow and arrow walked down grated floor stone faced. His eyes were blue, indicating that his mind was under Loki's control. After a few seconds of walking, he nocked an arrow and pointed it at Natasha, who caught the bow just as the arrow fired.

Natasha tried grabbing the man, but he quickly forced his way out and tried swinging his bow at her, missing. He forced her backwards as she blocked his attacks.

"Hey!" a voice behind him drew his attention.

Sora shot fire at the man with his Keyblade, which he slashed through with his bow. Now that he was distracted, Natasha kicked the man in the chest, knocking him back. She then slid underneath the floor while Sora tried swinging his Keyblade at the man. The man dodged the attack and attacked Sora with his bow. Natasha then came back up onto the floor and kicked him back again.

While he was falling back, the man nocked an arrow into his bow, which Natasha dodged as she jumped onto a nearby walkway. The man jumped onto the walkway after her, and was quickly followed by Sora.

Sora tried attacking the man with his Keyblade from behind, which he blocked, and retaliated by hitting Sora in the face with his bow. He then pushed Sora back and knocked him onto his back.

The man then tried swinging his bow at Natasha, which she blocked, then caught when he tried again. The man then wrapped the drawstring around Natasha's hands, pulled the bow back, and then hit her in the face with it. He then held her against the nearby railings and hit her a couple of times. She then hit him in the face, and knocked him back as she held his bow in her hands.

The man spun back and pulled out a knife. Then, Sora suddenly leaped up from behind and did a combo attack on the man's back. The man spun around and slashed his knife at the boy, which he dodged. Sora swiped his Keyblade at the man's legs, trying to knock them out from under the man. It didn't work, but he did damage the man by hitting him in the side. He then spun his Keyblade again, this time hitting the man in the chest with his swipe.

While Sora did manage to do some damage to the man, after trying to do another attack, the man kicked Sora in the chest, and knocked him onto his back.

The man then turned towards Natasha again and tried stabbing at her with the knife, but she caught his hand and kicked him. He tried punching her with one hand, then stabbing her with both hands, but she intercepted each. Natasha grabbed at the man's right arm and applied enough pressure into his arms to keep his arm held up.

The man then tossed his knife into his other hand and tried slashing at her, but she dodged it. He tried rushing her, but she moved out of his way, and pushed at the equipment on his back. He tried stabbing at her again, but she grabbed at his hand with both of hers, and he pushed her against the nearby railing. He grabbed her by the back of her head, and he did his best to push the knife towards her. They ended up turning towards Sora as he did his best to stab her.

Natasha then bit the man on his forearm, which made him drop the knife and lose his grip on her. She then backflipped, moving her legs in front of the man, instead of behind him like they were. He was now leaning forwards, her arm across his back. She then grabbed him and threw him head first into the metal railing.

"Ooh," Sora winced, watching while holding his Keyblade.

The man groaned as he stumbled onto the floor. Natasha watched as he tried steadying himself up. He got on his knees and looked up to her as the blue faded from his eyes.

"Natasha?" he weakly asked.

Natasha then punched him in the face, knocking him onto his back, unconscious. Sora looked up at her.

"I'm guessing this is Agent Barton?" Sora asked.

Natasha nodded.

"His first name is Clint," she told him. "Or Hawkeye."

Meanwhile, while the helicarrier was falling towards the ground, Tony was still flying around the one turbine, helping turn it on. The man grunted in effort as he pushed the turbine around at practically bullet speed.

After a few more seconds of pushing, the turbine started to spin fast enough to help support the helicarrier. It started regaining altitude, floating through the air once again.

"Cap, Jordan," Tony said over the intercom. "One of you hit the lever."

"I need a minute here!" Steve yelled as he tried climbing up the cable.

"Lever," Tony said, urgently. "Now!"

Steve finally climbed onto the new floor grating, at which the mercenary started shooting at him again.

Back in the engine, the turbine had now reached a level that it didn't need Tony to push it anymore. He then got knocked into the next side forcefully.

"Uh, oh," Tony said with genuine surprise.

The energy then pulled him underneath and started knocking him around the turbine.

"Help!" Tony screamed out as he was knocked around the turbine.

Steve reached up and pulled the red lever, which slowed the turbine down enough for Tony to fall out. Even though his armor was damaged, Tony was able to steady himself in the air. He then flew around and towards the open part where Steve was. He started to push himself up, at which the mercenary started trying to shoot at him again. Suddenly, fire appeared in front of the mercenary's helmet, blinding him. Tony then flew in and tackled him to the ground, at which they both fell, breathless.

Tony powered down his armor, while Steve breathed heavily, exhausted by what they just went through. He then looked at the wall nearby, where Vanitas was sitting up against it, also breathless.

"You good?" Steve asked him, tired.

"I'm all right," Vanitas gasped. "But I think this outfit is ruined."

It was true, his outfit was riddled with bullet holes, slashes, and burns. Nothing indecent was showing, but it was clear the outfit wouldn't work while out in public.

"I should have packed more clothes," Vanitas commented.

After a few seconds of just sitting there, the two of them picked themselves up and helped up Tony. Sora and Natasha also stood aside as they watched some medics pick up Clint and carry him away. Maria Hill had was even sitting back in the main room, but they were all surprised and saddened to hear Fury's next words over the intercom.

"Agent Coulson is down."

"A medical team is on its way to your location," a man said over the intercom.

"They're here," Fury announced. "They called it."

Tony just stared forwards with his helmet off, breathing, as he couldn't believe that the man was gone.

"Son of a bitch," Vanitas said, genuinely sad.

For once, everyone agreed with his words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geez, there was a lot of action in this one. I even had to break some of my own rules to get everything, but I wasn't able to include the end of Hulk vs. Thor, or what happened in the detention level. They do figure out what happened to Hulk and Thor later on. I mean, they did in the movie, so they will here. And don't worry about Vanitas' outfit, he gets a new, SHIELD outfit


	7. There was an idea...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group recovers from the attack, then gears up

Sora, Vanitas, Steve, and Tony gathered back in the conference room, with Fury standing near the table. Steve and Tony weren't wearing their suits anymore, and Vanitas was wearing a fresh jacket to replace his shredded shirt. The group didn't hesitate to hide their sadness over what had happened to Phil.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket," Fury told them, gesturing to some cards he was holding. "I guess he never did get you to sign them."

Fury then tossed the cards onto the table where they landed in front of Steve. He looked down at the the blood soaked cards somberly. He sighed out as he picked one of them up.

"We're dead in the air up here," Fury announced. "Our communications, the location of the Cube, Banner, Thor... I got nothing for you. I lost my one good eye."

"This sucks," Vanitas sighed out, at which Sora nodded in agreement.

Fury shook his head.

"Maybe I had that coming," he continued.

"Why?" Sora asked, looking up at the man. "What'd you do?"

After a pause, Fury started walking around the table.

"Yes," he told them. "We were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never did put all my chips on that number, though, because I was playing something even riskier."

He stopped and placed his hands on a chair.

"That was plan B?" Vanitas asked, curiously. "You mind telling us what plan A was?"

"There was an idea," Fury answered as he started walking past Steve's chair. "Stark knows this, called the Avengers Initiative." He leaned against a chair. "The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people... to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles we never could."

Tony sighed out as he took this in.

"Phil Coulson died believing in that idea," Fury continued. "In heroes."

At that, Tony stood up and stared forwards for a second. He then walked away, towards one of the hallways.

"Well," Fury said. "It's an old fashioned notion."

"Good luck with that Initiative," Vanitas said as he and Sora got up and left the room.

"What do we do now?" Sora asked as they walked through the hallways.

"I'm getting new clothes," Vanitas announced. "Then we're getting the fuck out of here."

"The ship's still busted," Sora said. "And Donald and Goofy are still recovering. Besides, what about Loki and the Tesseract?"

"Sora," Vanitas said, stopping and turning to look at Sora. "This isn't our business. We ended up here completely by accident. We should just cut our losses and leave while we still have the chance."

"Is that what happened last time?" Sora asked, disappointed and angry at his companion. "With your last friends? When the going got tough, you just cut your losses and left?"

Vanitas, now filled with rage, grabbed Sora by his shoulders and pressed the younger boy against the wall, hard. He pulled back his fist, making the threat obvious. However, Sora didn't even flinch at the look on Vanitas' face, or the fist he had pulled back.

"You don't understand shit," Vanitas growled to the boy. "If you went through half the crap I went through, you'd see my point of view, and understand."

"No, Vanitas," Sora said. "_You _don't understand. All the stuff you went through, you were by yourself. You were all on your own when all that happened to you, and you think that because you have amnesia about it, you should be bitter and angry all the time. But that's the thing; you're not alone anymore. You have people that have your back that want to help you. Whether you let them in or not, that's your decision. But if you keep going like this, you're just gonna stay alone, and never find what you're looking for."

Vanitas took in his younger lookalike's words as he continued to press the boy against the wall with his fist raised. He breathed in and out strongly as he fought every urge to punch the young boy in the face. After a few seconds, he just threw Sora against the wall and continued walking down the hallway, away from Sora.

Sora gasped, not expecting Vanitas to let him go so easily.

"Hopefully that broke through to him at least a little bit," he sighed out.

Sora then made his way through the hallways back to the med bay, where he sat down in the same chair from earlier, looking at Donald and Goofy as they slept. This time, after a few seconds of watching them, the two started to stir. At this, Sora straightened up in his chair, excited.

"Donald?" Sora asked. "Goofy?"

After a few more seconds, the two opened their eyes a bit and looked around until they found Sora.

"Sora...?" Donald muttered out.

"Where are we...?" Goofy asked.

"We're on Earth 616," Sora told them, hoping they remembered. "The ship crashed and we were found by SHIELD. They're sort of... this world's security. They know about other worlds and offered to help."

"Perfect timing," Donald muttered. "We definitely needed it."

"A-hyuck," Goofy agreed. "My head hurts."

"We're in a medical bay," Sora told them. "They're treating you guys well."

Donald opened his eyes a bit more and looked around, noticing that people were very busy.

"What happened?" Donald asked. "Everyone's running around like crazy."

"Well," Sora said. "It's a long story."

As quickly as he could, Sora told them about Loki, his brainwashed minions, the Tesseract, the Avengers and the problems they were going through, and the death of Phil Coulson.

"Whoa," Goofy breathed. "Quite a crazy world we crashed into."

"Yeah," Sora agreed. "And I have no idea where we're supposed to go from here."

"Simple," Donald winced as he sat up in the hospital bed. "You've got to help stop Loki."

"How?" Sora asked. "Vanitas doesn't want to help, we don't know where he is, and the team's divided."

"So?" Donald asked. "We've been pretty divided in the past, and we managed to get by pretty well. As for Vanitas, as much as he doesn't want to be here, he'll come around when he sees the full extent of the danger. As bitter as he is, he doesn't let that stop him from helping others."

"Yeah," Goofy agreed. "He'll help as much as he can."

Sora nodded in agreement.

"Yeah," he agreed. "We can do this. But, no offense guys... but I don't think you two'll be able to help out much."

"It's all right," Goofy said with a wave of his arm. "We still have to recover, so it only makes sense that we stay behind."

"As much as I want to to hit Loki upside the head with my staff," Donald said. "We gotta stay behind so we don't get worse. We'll be alright."

"So will I," Sora said, standing up. "Get well soon, guys. I'm gonna go find the others."

Sora left the med bay with a lot more determination than he had when he entered.

Vanitas, meanwhile, had made his own way around the helicarrier, just walking. He was mulling over Sora's words in his head, thinking about the truth behind them. He didn't even notice where he was going until he heard Natasha Romanoff's voice.

"Clint," he heard her voice through a door. "You're going to be all right."

"You know that?" he heard Clint Barton's voice ask. The man then chuckled. "Is that what you know?"

Vanitas walked forwards a bit to look through a window in the room to see Natasha standing next to the bed Clint was strapped to.

"I've got no window," Clint said. "I have to flush him out."

"You got to level out," Natasha told him as she poured a drink into a mug. "It's going to take time."

"You don't understand," Clint gasped as he writhed on the bed. "Have you ever had someone take your brain and play? Pull you out and put something else in?" He breathed for a second. "Do you know what it's like to be unmade?"

Vanitas paused, feeling some familiarity to the man's words. That's exactly what he felt like, having lost his memories and everything he cared about. He knew exactly what this man was talking about.

"You know that I do," Natasha told Clint.

Clint looked down and breathed out.

"Why am I back?" he asked. "How did you get him out?"

"Cognitive recalibration," Natasha said as she walked forwards and sat down on his bed in front of him. "I hit you really hard on the head."

"Thanks," Clint said, genuinely thankful.

After a few seconds of silence, Clint looked at Natasha directly as she started to undo his wrist straps.

"Natasha..." he said. "How many agents did I..."

"Don't," Natasha said. "Don't do that to yourself, Clint. This is Loki. This is... monsters and magic, and nothing we were ever trained for."

_You were brainwashed_, Vanitas thought. _Didn't have a choice._

It was then that Vanitas thought about most of the stuff he did over the last decade, and if he could have done things differently if he thought he had another choice.

"Loki," Clint said, suddenly. "Did he get away?"

"Yeah," Natasha said. "I don't suppose you know where?"

"I didn't need to know," Clint said as he shook his head. "I didn't ask."

Natasha stood up, and Vanitas crept back a bit to make sure he didn't get seen.

"He's going to make his play, soon, though," Clint continued, even though Vanitas couldn't see him. "Today."

"We got to stop him," Natasha told him.

"Yeah?" Clint asked. "Who's 'we'?"

"I don't know," Natasha admitted. "Whoever's left."

"Well," Clint contemplated. "If I put an arrow through Loki's eye socket, I would sleep better, I suppose."

"Now you sound like you," Vanitas heard Natasha as she got quieter, farther from the door.

"But you don't," Clint observed. "You're a spy, not a soldier. Now you want to wade into a war. Why?"

He paused.

"What did he do to you?" Clint asked.

Natasha paused before she answered.

"He didn't," she admitted. "I just..."

Vanitas could barely hear what else they were saying, so he walked away with newfound determination to try to find the others.

"By the way..." Clint suddenly said. "Who was the kid who was watching us with spikey, black hair?"

"That was Vanitas," Natasha told him. "He can probably sympathize with you. About a decade ago, he lost his family, powers, and memories, and has been on a rampage to try to find the guy responsible."

"Wait, Vanitas?" Clint asked, interested. "The Keyblade Master that helped out SHIELD back in the 90's?"

"Yup," Natasha confirmed. "It's only been ten years for him, because apparently time works weirdly between other worlds. But he hasn't aged because his life force is gone, so he's still fifteen. He's working with a kid who's also been chosen by a Keyblade, in hopes the kid can help him. You met the kid."

"I did?" Clint asked, confused.

"You won't really like this part," Natasha said, preparing to tell him about the fight that broke out among the three.

Meanwhile, Tony stood in the room that had the cage, not far from where Loki had killed Phil. Steve suddenly walked in with Sora, and they were quickly followed by Vanitas.

"Was he married?" Steve asked Tony, clearly about Phil.

"No," Tony told him. "There was a, cellist, I think."

"Keep love alive," Vanitas said, remembering Tony's words from earlier.

"I'm sorry," Steve said, looking down. "He seemed like a good man."

"A very good man," Sora agreed.

Tony nodded and looked towards them.

"He was an idiot," he said.

"Why?" Steve asked. "For believing?"

"For taking on Loki alone," Tony said as he walked along the grated floor.

"He was doing his job," Steve insisted.

Tony scoffed. "He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have..."

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony," Steve told him as he walked along the floor, towards the man.

"Right," Tony said, pointing at Steve. "I've heard that before."

"Personally," Vanitas said. "I don't agree with that. We save as many people as we can, it's our job."

Sora nodded in agreement, happy that his friend had his courage back.

"Is this the first time you lost a soldier?" Steve asked Tony as he walked past him.

"We are not soldiers," Tony angrily Steve as he turned to face the man.

After pausing for a second, Tony continued.

"I'm not marching into Fury's fife," he said, more determined.

"Then don't think of it as that," Sora suggested. "Think of it as avenging Phil's death."

"Think of it as getting back at this motherfucker for what he did to a good man," Vanitas added.

"Exactly," Steve said. "I'm not into doing this for Fury, either. He's got the same blood on his hands as Loki does. But right now, we've got to put that behind us and get this done."

As Steve talked, Tony looked at the wall where Phil's blood hadn't entirely been cleaned up.

"Now Loki needs a power source," Steve continued. "If we can put together a list..."

"He made it personal," Tony suddenly said as he looked up at Steve.

"That's not the point," Steve said.

"Wait," Vanitas said. "What do you mean?"

"That is the point," Tony insisted. "That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?"

"To tear us apart," Steve answered.

"He kind of succeeded," Sora sighed out.

"Yeah," Tony said, crossing his arms. "Divide and conquer is great but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, he wants to be seen doing it."

The others nodded along, starting to understand Tony's words.

"He wants an audience," Tony continued as he walked past Steve, but still looking at the man.

"Right," Steve agreed. "I caught his act in Stuttgart."

"Yeah," Tony agreed as he walked towards the nearby controls. "That was just previews. This is opening night." He patted his hands together to emphasize his point. He then looked back towards the others. "And Loki, he's a full tilt diva, right?"

Steve nodded as he and the boys started to understand Tony a bit more.

"He wants flowers," Tony continued, gesturing with his arms. "He wants parades. He wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered..."

He stopped, realizing immediately where he was going with this. Steve, Sora, and Vanitas did as well, and their eyes widened.

"Son of a bitch," Tony realized.

The four of them then went their separate ways to prepare.

Steve put his suit on and he and Sora went to get Natasha and Clint. They stepped in the frame and looked at the two of them.

"Time to go," Steve announced.

"Go where?" Natasha asked.

"We'll tell you on the way," Sora told her.

"Can you fly one of those jets?" Steve asked.

"I can," Clint announced as he walked out of what Sora guessed was the bathroom.

Steve looked from Clint to Natasha, who nodded in confirmation.

"You got a suit?" Steve asked Clint.

"Yeah," Clint confirmed.

"Then suit up," Steve said as he and Sora walked out.

Vanitas, meanwhile, was doing just that. He found a SHIELD jumpsuit in his size, and outfitted it to fit his sling on the back. He did make a custom change to the arms, though. Where the SHIELD logo was on each arm, Vanitas had fire blaze onto the circles, burning them out so that instead of the SHIELD logo, the circles now held his symbol of X. He slipped into the jumpsuit and outfitted his guns into the holsters, and made sure his weapons were easy to reach on his back.

Meanwhile, Steve had grabbed his shield, Clint fitted his quiver on his back, Natasha activated the gadgets on her wrists, Tony used a tool on his helmet, turning it back on, and Sora summoned his Keyblade and swung it readily. Elsewhere, Thor even lifted his hammer, Mjolnir, and raised it into the air, at which lightning blasted into it, forming more and more of his armor.

Tony got ready to take flight, while Sora and Vanitas walked with Steve, Clint, and Natasha through the hanger towards one of the Quinjets with determination on all of their faces.

They walked onto a Quinjet, confusing a man who was working on one of the computers.

"Hey," he said. "You guys aren't authorized to be in here."

"Son," Steve said. "Just don't."

"No offense, pal," Vanitas calmly told the man. "But get the fuck out."

Back in the conference room, Fury stood on the circular window floor, looking out into the sky as he ruffled the trading cards from earlier. Maria Hill walked towards him from behind.

"Sir," she said.

"Agent Hill," Fury acknowledged her as she crossed her arms.

"Those cards," Maria said. "They were in Coulson's locker, not in his jacket."

Fury sighed out as he looked at the blood soaked cards in his hands.

"They needed the push," Fury told her.

Maria looked at him curiously as he looked down.

"We have an unauthorized departure from Bay 6," a voice announced over the PA as Tony left in his suit, and the others left in the jet.

"They found him," Fury announced. "Get our communications back up, whatever you have to do. I want eyes on everything."

He started walking past Maria.

"Yes, sir," she announced as they went to work.

Things were escalating quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I needed to have Donald and Goofy say something besides whatever they might say at the end, so I figured, why not have them encourage Sora. And at this point, I decided Vanitas has been a grumpy guy for too long without changing one bit at this point. He needed some change, so why not here?


	8. We have a Hulk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Invasion of New York starts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literally every one of these fanfictions I mentioned includes the bickering between Loki and Tony before the invasion starts, and the Thor and Loki debacle whether they're told from different points of view or not, so I decided to do that here so it wouldn't feel weird. Plus, I haven't had Loki that much so far, so I felt I needed to add it

With some trouble due to his damaged suit, Tony managed to fly into New York and back to Stark Tower. He could see that on the roof, the mind controlled Erik Selvig was working on a mechanism with the Tesseract that would open the portal. As he flew up to the building, he could hear the electric voice of JARVIS talking to him through his suit.

"Sir," the computer program told him. "I've turned off the arc reactor but the device is already self sustaining."

Tony stopped and hovered above where the Selvig was finishing things up.

"Shut it down, Dr. Selvig," Tony announced, at which the man turned to face him.

"It's too late!" Selvig gleefully yelled. He turned back towards the machine. "She can't stop now. She wants to show us something! A new universe!"

"Okay," Tony said, annoyed, as he powered up the blasters on his gauntlets.

He blasted shots from the gauntlets at the machine, which deflected off of a shield. The reflected blast knocked Selvig to the ground, and Tony back, while also garnering the attention of many inhabitants of the city.

Tony managed to steady himself in the air once again.

"The barrier is pure energy," JARVIS told him. "It's unbreachable."

"Yeah, I got that," Tony said, looking down to his balcony, where Loki stood, staring up at him. "Plan B."

"Sir, the Mark 7 is not ready for deployment," JARVIS told Tony.

"Then skip the spinning rims," Tony told JARVIS. "We're on the clock."

Tony landed on a small platform and started walking down a small walkway. As he walked, spinning rims appeared around him, depositing arms that took off the armor piece by piece. Once the mask was off, he stared down Loki while walking, while the other man walked in the other door. Tony scoffed as he turned away from the man.

"Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity," Loki told Tony once they were indoors.

"Uh, actually, I'm planning to threaten you," Tony announced from up on the bannister.

"You should have left your armor on for that," Loki remarked, gesturing with his scepter while Tony walked down the stairs.

"Yeah," Tony agreed. "It's seen a bit of milage, and you've got the uh..." Tony gestured to the scepter. "...Glow stick of destiny."

Loki smiled at the scepter while Tony walked around the bar.

"Would you like a drink?" he asked.

"Stalling me won't change anything," Loki told him.

"No, no, no," Tony corrected him. "Threatening." He pointed to the collection of alcohol. "No drink? Are you sure? I'm having one."

Loki turned away from him and walked towards the window, looking out to the city.

"The Chitari are coming," he boasted. "Nothing will change that." He turned to face Tony again. "What have I to fear?"

"The Avengers," Tony answered, opening a bottle and looking down to the glass he placed on his table.

At Loki's confused expression, Tony elaborated.

"That's what we call ourselves," he said, shrugging. "We're sort of like a team." He poured the drink into the cup. "'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' type thing."

"Yes," Loki smiled. "I've met them."

"Yeah," Tony chuckled. "It takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one. But let's do a head count, here."

"Your brother, the demigod," at that, Loki turned away, which gave Tony the chance to start grabbing wrist gears hiding within the bar.

"A super soldier," Tony continued. "A living legend who kind of lives up to the legend." He put the gears on, but they looked like simple bracelets.

"A man with breath-taking anger issues," Tony continued, at which Loki looked over his shoulder at him, smiling. "A couple of master assassins, a small kid with an oversized key that's stopped a sorcerer and giant monsters, an anemic homicidal pyrotechnic that packs a mean punch, and _you._" He pointed at Loki. "Big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them."

"That was the plan," Loki said, still smiling.

"Not a great plan," Tony remarked as he started walking around the bar, carrying his drink.

"When they come," he continued, walking towards Loki. "And they will, they'll come for you."

"I have an army," Loki pointed out.

"We have a Hulk," Tony rebutted.

"I thought the beast had wandered off," Loki commented as Tony walked so he was now across from Loki.

"You're missing the point," Tony said, at a last point. "There is no throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes, and maybe it's too much for us, but it's all on you."

After a second of silence, Tony continued.

"Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it."

With that, he took a sip from his drink.

Loki wasn't impressed. He walked towards Tony with scorn in his eyes.

"How will your friends have time for me," Loki announced. "When they're so busy fighting you?"

Tony's eyes widened as Loki powered up the scepter. He placed the scepter to Tony's chest... and it clinked on the arc reactor and powered down. The smirk disappeared from Loki's face as he tried using the scepter again, but getting the same results.

"This usually works," Loki commented.

"Well, performance issues," Tony shrugged. "It's not uncommon. One out of five..."

Loki interrupted him by grabbing him by the neck and throwing him across the room onto the floor.

"JARVIS, anytime now," Tony commented, getting on his knees and elbows before standing up.

Loki grabbed him by the neck once again.

"You will all fall before me," he growled in an actually freaky sounding voice.

"Deploy!" Tony yelled as a metal door across the room started opening. "Deploy!"

Loki threw Tony towards the window and he crashed through, yelling as he fell towards the ground. Back in the apartment, a projectile shot out of the now open metal door, past Loki, and through the window. The projectile flew towards Tony, transforming into an open suit of armor. It locked on to the bracelets Tony was wearing, and flew faster. The gears started attaching to him, the suit of armor putting itself on over him. The suit finished converting just as he got close to the ground. Tony engaged the thrusters just in time, scaring some of the people on the ground, and flew back up.

"And there's one other person you pissed off," Tony announced as he got back to eye level with Loki. "His name was Phil."

Loki pointed his scepter at Tony, but Tony was faster and blasted Loki with his thruster, knocking the man onto his back.

Unfortunately, just at that moment, the machine activated and launched a beam into the sky. Tony looked up just as a portal opened high in the sky. Chitari started flying out individually on speeders, flying through the city.

"Right," Tony said, switching the screens in his suit into battle mode. "Army."

Tony flew up into the air, dodging Chitari blasts, while retaliating with blasts of his own from his gloves. Once he got close enough, a gear opened on his shoulder pad, and tiny missiles flew out and at the enemy, blowing up many of them.

Unfortunately, he was only one man, so more and more of them flew past Tony and started blasting into the city. People ran as quickly as they could as the Chitari flew through the city, blasting at cars, the ground, and various parts of buildings. Explosions erupted from the cars, causing a good amount of damage to the city. People tried hiding indoors and watched in shock as the army attacked the city.

Back at Stark Tower, Loki had walked back out onto the landing pad and had his helmet appear on his head. He watched over the destruction he was a part of, until Thor landed below him on the balcony.

"Loki!" Thor called out, drawing his brother's attention. "Turn off the Tesseract, or I'll destroy it."

"You can't," Loki told him. "There is no stopping it. There is only... the war."

"So be it," Thor remarked.

Loki yelled as he lunged at Thor, which the blonde blocked. Thor swung his hammer at Loki, which he blocked with his scepter. Thor then pulled back and twirled his hammer, then Loki swung the spear like part at Thor, at which the blonde ducked at. Loki then spun and blasted a blue beam at Thor, which he absorbed with his hammer. Loki then swung his scepter downwards, just as Thor did the same with his hammer. Their attack hit the floor, and the impact blew the RK off of the Stark board.

Meanwhile, in the middle of the chaos, as Tony flew around trying to take out Chitari, the Quinjet carrying the rest of the team flew in the city.

"Stark, we're on your three," Natasha announced. "Heading northeast."

"What?" Tony asked, annoyed. "Did you stop for drive-through?"

"I wish," Vanitas joked. "I could go for a sandwich."

"Swing up Park," Tony continued. "I'm going to lay them out for you."

As Chitari chased Tony across the city, Thor and Loki continued their fight. They reflected each others attacks, neither one of them relenting.

Tony flew in an arc around a building, followed closely by Chitari, leading them right where he wanted to. Back in the Quinjet, they converted the ship's rail gun out. They flew down the street, at which Tony flew in front of them, and when the Chitari came into view after Tony, they blasted the aliens with the gun.

Vanitas suddenly got an idea as they flew up into the air. He went back to the back ramp and pressed the button, opening it slowly. Everyone took notice, and was surprised.

"Vanitas!" Sora called out.

"What the hell are you doing?" Steve yelled.

"Something stupid!" Vanitas admitted.

He then jumped out the Quinjet, at which Sora ran to the ledge and watched him fall.

"Was he wearing a parachute?" Clint asked from the pilot's seat.

"Nope," Sora said as Steve pressed the button to close the ramp.

Vanitas fell and landed on a speeder with a Chitari. The Chitari roared at him, and tried pushing him off, but he held on to the railing. Vanitas then held the Chitari's head in both of his hands and turned it, at which he heard bone crack. He then threw the Chitari off and grabbed the speeder's controls. Vanitas turned the Speeder and flew after the Quinjet.

"Nice job, Vanitas," Natasha congratulated him.

"How do I know how to fly this thing?" Vanitas asked, not expecting an answer.

"Sir," JARVIS told Tony. "We have more incoming."

"Fine," Tony said. "Let's keep them occupied.

The group in the Quinjet and Vanitas on his speeder kept blasting Chitari as they continued coming out of the portal.

Back on the balcony, Thor swung his hammer at Loki's head, which he ducked. He then grabbed Thor by his shoulder and smashed him through part of the remaining glass railway.

Natasha and Clint watched part of the fight from the Quinjet as they flew in front of the tower.

"Nat?" Clint asked.

"I see him," Natasha confirmed.

They turned the Quinjet towards Loki. Vanitas got the message and did the same thing with his speeder. Loki then threw Thor out of the way and pointed his scepter at the two aerodynamic vehicles as they fired at him. He fired a blast at the Quinjet, which hit the left wing, which caused a giant explosion. Steve and Sora held on as the Quinjet spiraled out of control.

Thor tackled Loki in rage and started punching his brother voraciously.

The Quinjet then flew through the city, crashing into various buildings as Clint and Natasha tried to stabilize everything. Steve and Sora held on desperately, trying not to get thrown around. They eventually crashed into a large concrete part of ground in front of a building, hard.

"Oh, shit," Vanitas said, surprised for his allies.

Blasts then fired past him, which surprised him. Vanitas looked behind him to see some more Chitari speeders flying towards him, firing their blasters.

"Oh, shit," Vanitas said, surprised, as he flew away from the Chitari.

Back in the Quinjet, Clint and Natasha unstrapped themselves from the pilot's seats and followed Steve and Sora out of the ramp, carrying their weapons. They ran through the city, looking down the street of Stark Tower.

"We gotta get back up there," Steve announced.

"Where's Vanitas when you need him?" Sora asked.

They stopped in the middle of a street facing Grand Central Station when they heard a loud mechanical growl. People ran past them away from the destruction and aliens. As they stared up at the portal, Sora started to wonder if he should be following them.

All of a sudden, a giant flying Leviathan flew out the portal, roaring out it's mouth. It smashed apart a statue as it flew above the four of them, who watched in shock and awe. As they watched, it launched out Chitari soldiers which landed on the sides of buildings and started sliding down. Some crashed through windows, pulled out blasters, and started shooting at people.

"Holy shit!" Vanitas yelled, surprised.

"Stark, are you seeing this?" Steve asked, over the intercom.

"Seeing," Tony said. "Still working on believing. Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?"

"Banner?" Steve asked, confused.

"Just keep me posted," Tony confirmed. "JARVIS, find me a soft spot."

Just then, the Leviathan smashed most of the glass off of a building.

"Look at this!" Thor yelled at Loki, their weapons held together, as Loki looked out at the city. "Look around you!"

"You think this madness will end with your rule?" Thor asked him.

"It's too late," Loki cracked out, looking at his brother. "It's too late to stop it."

Loki then looked down, breathing.

"No," Thor tried comforting his brother. "We can, together."

Loki smiled at his brother. Then he stabbed Thor in the stomach. Thor groaned, dropped his hammer, and got on a knee.

"Sentiment," Loki whispered.

Thor then leaped up. Loki intercepted his punch, but Thor then threw him through another glass railway. Thor then picked Loki up off the ground, and threw him back onto it, hard. Loki then rolled off the railing, leaving behind his scepter. He landed on a speeder and worked the controls, leading a few Chitari through the city. Thor threw aside the knife and breathed, taking in everything that was happening.

Back on the bridge, Steve, Sora, Clint, and Natasha took cover behind a taxi cab.

"We've got civilians trapped up there," Clint said, gesturing to a building with his head.

Their attention was drawn to the fleet of Chitari speeders flying through the city and blasting more taxis.

"Loki," Steve remarked.

"This guy's insane," Sora announced.

He wasn't wrong. Though Loki's leadership, the speeders blaster apart all kinds of cars, all of which nearly took out dozens of people.

"They're fish in a barrel down there," Steve said.

"I'm on it," Vanitas remarked, over the intercom.

A laser blast hit the Taxi they were crouching behind, at which Natasha jumped up and started shooting her handguns at the nearby Chitari. Clint ran forwards and ducked under a car for cover as more Chitari landed on the bridge.

"Freeze!" Sora yelled, pointing his Keyblade towards the aliens and blasting ice towards them.

"We got this," Natasha told Steve. "It's good. Go."

Steve nodded and looked over the taxi, now noticing how black, shadow like creatures suddenly appeared with the Chitari.

"Heartless!" Sora exclaimed.

"That's actually pretty freaky," Clint remarked as one heartless plunged it's claws into a man's chest.

"I'm not on it!" Vanitas' voice suddenly yelled over the intercom.

"Sora, you go with the Captain," Natasha told Sora. "Take out the Heartless."

"Okay," Sora nodded his head.

"You think you can hold off the Chitari?" Steve asked Clint.

"Captain," Clint said, activating his quiver, attaching an arrow to go next in line. "It would be my genuine pleasure."

He pulled out an arrow and fired it at one Chitari, which hit it in its head. The arrow then fired multiple bullets, hitting more Chitari.

Natasha then jumped out and fired her handguns towards more Chitari, giving Steve and Sora the chance to jump off the bridge, to help the people. As they ran across a bus, more blasts exploded behind them. They jumped off the bus and were propelled forwards even more thanks to an exploding car.

"That was awesome!" Sora exclaimed as he and Steve ran down the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to try to figure out parts to split the Battle of New York into different chapters cause you all know I hate doing really long chapters, so for that, I'll play it as it goes. Also, the "Was he wearing a parachute?" joke, yes that was a reference to Winter Soldier, as Vanitas will be in that one as well


	9. Always Angry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group gathers together

As Sora and Steve ran down the street, Natasha held off Chitari with her handguns. This gave Clint enough cover to open up a city bus and help the civilians inside escape. Once they were out of the way, he ran back towards Natasha and aimed his bow at the Chitari.

"Just like Budapest all over again," Natasha told Clint over the noise.

"You and I remember Budapest very differently," Clint remarked.

All of a sudden, a speeder exploded above them, and from the fire fell Vanitas. He landed next to them, pulled out his assault rifle and looked at the two of them.

"What the hell is Budapest?" he asked as he shot Chitari.

"Long story," was all Natasha said before resuming fire.

Sora and Steve meanwhile ran through the street, jumping over cars, dodging lasers, and, in Sora's case, blasting heartless as they ran towards where the police were trying to shoot at flying Chitari. Steve jumped on a car trunk in front of two talking officers. They looked up at him, surprised.

"You need men in these buildings," Steve told them, pointing to nearby buildings. "There are people inside and they're gonna be running right into the line of fire."

"And we don't necessarily want that," Sora remarked as he slashed his Keyblade into a Soldier.

"You take them to the basements or through the subway," Steve continued. "You keep them off the streets."

One of the officers just looked around, no doubt confused by the guy in the red, white, and blue outfit telling him what to do.

"I need a perimeter as far back as 39th," Steve went on, pointing towards the street.

"What the hell should I take orders from you?" the officer asked. "Or this kid?"

Just then, a car behind them blew up, garnering Sora and Steve's attention. Two Chitari landed on the car Steve was on, and one near Sora. Sora attacked the Chitari with a combo attack while Steve hit one with his shield. He then used his shield to block a laser blast from another, then punched it in the face, knocking it onto the hood of the car. He then hit the other Chitari in the head with his shield, knocking it to the ground. He then grabbed the other Chitari's attached hand blaster and took it off with the end of his shield. The Chitari roared in pain before Steve knocked it into a building with his shield.

"Thunder!" Sora exclaimed, pointing his Keyblade into the air.

Lightning then came down from the air and took out multiple Shadows that had appeared, and hurt the other Chitari he had been fighting. This persuaded the cop. He turned towards the other police officers.

"I need men in those buildings," he said, gesturing to the buildings Steve told him about. "Lead the people down and away from the street." He then talked into his shoulder mounted walkie talkie. "We're going to set up a perimeter all the way down to 39th Street."

Tony, meanwhile, had flown in front of the Leviathan and shot more tiny but powerful missiles at it, garnering its attention. The Leviathan roared as it turned, crashing through a building as it followed Tony. The debris fell to the ground, scaring many people.

"Well," Tony told JARVIS. "We got its attention. What the hell was step two?"

He then turned and started flying away again, with the Leviathan right behind him.

Back on the bridge, Natasha used a Chitari blaster to well, blast a Chitari, and Clint knocked one off of its feet with his bow. He then stabbed it in the torso with one of his arrows. Vanitas hit one in the face with the butt of his rifle, then shot it in the torso. While Natasha climbed on another Chitari's back and used her wrist taser to electrocute the hell out of its head, Clint ran across the bridge and was immediately tackled to the ground by another Chitari.

Natasha then used the pole mounted blaster to block the attacks of two Chitari at once. She then turned and blasted both with the laser. Clint had managed to stab the Chitari that tackled him in the chest with another arrow, while Vanitas deflected the attacks of another Chitari's pole laser with his machete. He then used his machete to slice off the Chitari's head.

"How sharp is that machete?" Natasha asked.

"You'd be surprised," Vanitas remarked as he stabbed another one in the torso.

More Chitari landed on the bridge nearby. Natasha blasted at some while Clint shot at one behind him with his bow. Vanitas raised his machete to attack the Chitari rushing in front of Clint, but didn't need to when Steve hopped onto the bridge and knocked them aside with his shield.

Steve then attacked two more Chitari with his shield while Sora used Sonic Blade to slide around and attack some more on his own.

Three more Chitari walked towards them with their blasters raised, when all of a sudden, blue lightning came from the sky and electrocuted the hell out of them. The Chitari fell to the ground, dead, and Thor landed in the middle of them on one knee. He stood up, clearly angry at what was going on.

"What's the story upstairs?" Steve asked as they regrouped.

"The power surrounding the Cube is impenetrable," Thor told them.

"Thor's right," Tony told them over the intercom. "We gotta deal with these guys."

"But we might actually have a solution," Vanitas suggested, while also gesturing to Sora. "They designed that thing to be impenetrable from things from this world, as well as that awesome hammer Thor has. Even if Loki's working with Maleficent, he couldn't have known that we'd end up here since we never did. What if the Keyblade can break through?"

"Let's hope you're right," Sora said. "Cause this is not going well."

"How do we do this?" Natasha asked.

"As a team," Steve answered.

"I have unfinished business with Loki," Thor told them.

"Yeah?" Clint asked as he messed with his arrows. "Well, get in line."

"Save it," Steve told them, walking forwards a bit. "Loki's going to keep this fight focused on us, and that's what we need. Without him, these things could run wild." He turned to face the others as he was now in front of them. "We got Stark up top. He's going to need us to..."

He stopped and turned around at the sound of a motorcycle engine running. All of their attentions were drawn to Bruce riding towards them. He stopped the bike and got off more than a few feet away from them.

"Son of a bitch," Vanitas said, actually impressed.

The group walked towards Bruce as he kept walking towards them.

"So," he said. "This all seems horrible."

"I've seen worse," Natasha said.

"So have I," Vanitas remarked.

"Me, too," Sora admitted.

"Sorry," Bruce said, actually sounding it.

"No," Natasha corrected him. "We could use a little worse."

"Stark," Steve said over the intercom. "We got him."

"Banner?" Tony asked.

"Just like you said," Steve said.

"Then tell him to suit up," Tony told them. "I'm bringing the party to you."

He then flew around a building, which the Leviathan crashed through. The others turned towards the sight and sounds of the Leviathan flying towards them. Thor snarled and twirled his hammer in his hand.

"I-I don't see how that's a party," Natasha said.

"Neither do I," Sora said.

"Could definitely use some chips and dip," Vanitas tried joking to ease the tension. It didn't work.

Tony flew low enough to the ground, and the Leviathan followed his example and flew close to the ground. Following its nature of crashing through things, it smashed through remaining cars and parts of the road. Tony flew over the group, and Bruce started walking towards the Leviathan charging down the road towards them.

"Dr. Banner," Steve interjected. "Now might be a really good time for you to get angry."

Bruce smiled over his shoulder at them as he kept walking.

"That's my secret, Captain," he said as he faced the Leviathan again and stood in place. He then looked back over his shoulder at them.

"I'm always angry."

"I have goosebumps," Sora whispered to Sora.

"If my heart could beat," Vanitas whispered back. "So could I."

Bruce pulled back his fist as he turned towards the charging Leviathan. He slowly turned green and outgrew his shirt as he let the Hulk take over. He punched the Leviathan, which caused it to raise its back half into the air as it pushed him across the road. Hulk roared as the Leviathan became perpendicular with the street, and part of it's armor fell off,, revealing its weak spot.

"Hold on!" Tony yelled as he hovered above the others and pointed his fist at the Leviathan.

A missile shot out of a wrist compartment and into the exposed area. As the Leviathan exploded, Steve and Natasha hid under his shield, Thor braced himself for the for the fire (which somehow didn't even faze him), Vanitas braced himself around Sora, protecting his younger lookalike, and Clint ducked behind a car.

As the fire went on, pieces of the Leviathan fell off the bridge and onto some cars. Chitari that were crawling around on the buildings turned towards what had happened and roared in rage over what had happened.

On the bridge, the group gathered together. Hulk roared out in rage. Tony hovered down behind Hulk and Clint. Clint nocked another arrow in his bow. Vanitas twirled his right hand in a circle, making a ball of fire appear in his palm as he held his machete in his left hand. Sora spun his Keyblade in a loop, surprised he managed to pull it off. Thor twirled his hammer around. Natasha loaded a full clip into her handgun, and Steve tightened his shield straps onto his arm. They all turned to look up to where the Chitari were roaring on the building.

"Send the rest," Loki said while he watched the group gathered together on the bridge.

Two more Leviathans flew out the portal, along with even more Chitari on speeders.

"Guys," Natasha said, looking up at the portal, drawing the others' attention.

"Holy shit," Vanitas said, actually surprised.

"Call it, Captain," Tony said as everyone turned to look at the aliens coming out of the portal.

"All right, listen up," Steve announced. "Until we can close that portal, our priority is containment."

"Barton, I want you on that roof," Clint looked towards the building he was talking about. "Call out patterns and strays."

"Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than blocks out, you turn it back, or you turn it to ash."

"Vanitas, you try to get another speeder. Help Stark out, while also try to get Sora up there so we can see if the Keyblade'll work."

"Can you give us a lift?" Clint asked.

"Right," Tony said. "Better clench up, Legolas. You, too, Scarface."

"Still not funny," Vanitas interjected as he grabbed Clint with his right hand, and Vanitas with his left. "I'll be back as soon as I get another one of those things."

Tony flew up in the air carrying the two.

"Thor," Steve continued. "You got to try and bottleneck that portal. Slow them down. You got the lightning. Light the bastards up."

"I'd try something," Sora said. "But I honestly don't know how much reach a beam from the Keyblade can get."

"It's all right, friend, Sora," Thor said, spinning his hammer by the wrap. "I can hold them off."

He pointed the hammer into the sky and flew into the air.

"You and me," Steve said to Natasha and Sora. "We stay here on the ground until Vanitas comes back with the ride. We keep the fighting here. And Hulk..."

Hulk turned towards the captain. Steve pointed up into the air.

"...Smash."

Hulk grinned and leaped up into the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I get goosebumps literally every time I watch the spin scene, so this was really exciting to write about


	10. The Avengers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the battle rages on, trouble brews elsewhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, if you already couldn't guess, those original rules I mentioned earlier are going out the window during major action scenes like this

Hulk leaped onto a building and smashed a Chitari soldier into the wall. He then leaped onto two more buildings and did this again. Once they were dead, he leaped into the air into the path of some speeders flying along, and crashed through them.

Thor, meanwhile, flew up onto the top of the Empire State Building, held on to the side, and pointed his hammer into the sky. Clouds gathered and shot lightning into him. The lightning surged through Thor, and the building, causing many of the windows to break. Once he had gathered enough power from the lightning, Thor yelled out as he shot the lightning into the portal, frying Chitari on speeders and Leviathan alike.

While all of this was going on, Fury and the rest of SHIELD watched everything from the helicarrier. Maria Hill walked over to Fury with some news.

"Sir," she told him. "The Council was on."

Fury already knew this wasn't going to be good, even as he switched one of the monitors to talk to the Council.

Back in New York, Clint was doing his best to take out Chitari speeders with his bow while mounted on top of a building.

"Stark," he said, nocking another arrow. "You got a lot of strays sniffing your tail."

He fired the arrow while Tony flew around with many speeders following him.

"Just trying to keep them off the streets," Tony said.

"Well, they can't bank worth a damn," Clint said, shooting a speeder with his bow without even looking at it. "So find a tight corner."

"I will roger that," Tony said.

At that moment, Vanitas landed on one of the speeders in the far back that was following Tony. He quickly cut off the Chitari's head with his machete, and tossed aside the body. He grabbed the controls.

"Got a new speeder," he reported. "But I don't know how long I'll be able to fly it before it gets blown like the last one."

Tony then flew in an arc around Clint, and Clint took the opportunity to shoot a trick arrow onto one of the speeders. It broke into pieces and fell to the ground, while Tony let one fly in front of him. He blasted the speeder, which exploded into pieces. Vanitas flew his speeder in the back and blasted some of the remaining ones, causing them to fly around before they crashed into each other, at which they hit the ground in explosions.

Tony then flew through a tall archway of a building, then made a hard left, causing some Chitari following him to crash into another building. Vanitas flew after Tony in his own speeder, even though they were still being followed.

"Oh, boy," Tony sighed out.

"You're telling me," Vanitas agreed.

The two of them flew through another building's archways, at which Tony had to grab Vanitas off of his speeder as there was a slot too large for the massive size of it. They flew through as the speeder and the Chitari following them crashed into the wall. They flew into the street as the crashing speeder skid down the road and crashed into another building.

"Geez," Vanitas commented as they flew through the air. "I hope this city has insurance."

"Nice call," Tony reported to Clint. "What else you got?"

"Thor is taking on a squadron down on sixth," the archer told them over the intercom.

"And he didn't invite us," Tony said, sounding offended.

"The nerve of some people," Vanitas agreed, in a similar voice.

They flew through the streets, unknowingly followed by a Leviathan. Luckily, in a nearby building, Hulk ran through an office towards the flying alien. He leaped through the window and gripped onto one of its teeth, causing the Leviathan distress. He pulled it towards the ground, causing it to fly around more crazily than it already was.

Meanwhile, Natasha had been thrown onto a car hood by a Chitari soldier, which then tried stabbing her with its rod. It missed, and she wrapped herself onto its shoulders with her legs, and grunted as she electrocuted the heck out of its head with her wrist gadgets. She fell back onto the car, grabbed the soldier's pole, and blasted its head. She turned around, pointing it at Steve, who landed right next to her.

Nearby, Sora had just finished using Sonic Blade and finished off another Chitari with a combo attack. With the Chitari down, Sora ran towards his friends, who were breathing woozily.

"Captain," Natasha said, tired. "None of this is going to mean a damn thing if we don't close that portal."

At that, the group looked up at where the portal was still open, releasing Chitari and Leviathans.

"Our biggest guns couldn't touch it," Steve said.

"Well, maybe it's not about guns," Natasha pointed out.

"Well, even if I can't guarantee that the Keyblade will work," Sora suggested. "We have to at least try."

"If you want to get up there," Steve said. "You're going to need a ride. Vanitas, how you doing on that front?"

"Not too well," Vanitas told them over the intercom. "They learned their lesson after the first time I got on one. Minutes after I get on one, they blast it to pieces."

Natasha tossed away the pole mounted blaster.

"We got a ride," she said, looking up and walking a few feet away from Steve.

Steve and Sora both looked up to see many different Chitari speeders flying above them.

"I could use a boost, though," Natasha told Steve.

He got the hint and backed up, holding his shield with both hands.

"Are you sure about this?" Steve asked.

"Yeah," Natasha said as she looked from Steve to the speeders. "It's gonna be fun."

"I seem to have a different definition of 'fun' then everyone else," Sora commented.

Natasha then ran forwards and jumped onto Steve's shield. He then launched her up into the air, and she managed to grab onto a Chitari speeder.

"Okay, that did look fun," Sora commented as they watched the speeder fly away.

He and Steve were surprised by a blast hitting part of the bridge railing next to them. The two of them turned to see many more Chitari walking towards them, some pointing their blasters.

Natasha, meanwhile, fought her way up the speeder through the strong winds. She knocked off the gunner, and climbed onto the flyer's back, incapacitating him in a way that gave her control over him.

As she flew through the air, she was quickly followed by another Chitari speeder, but it was just as quickly taken out by Tony with one of his propellers. Vanitas jumped onto the speeder and blasted one of the Chitari with his rifle before he jumped off towards the ground. Tony, meanwhile, flew down onto the bridge, blasting Chitari along the way. He landed next to Steve and Sora and rushed through a few Chitari. Steve then jumped around Tony in an arc and hit one Chitari with his shield while Sora used another combo attack on another. Steve ducked as Tony fired a laser at a Chitari behind him, then pointed his shield at Tony. Tony then fired his laser at the Vibrainium shield, and Sora ducked as Steve turned it, propelling the laser through two Chitari.

Tony then flew up the side of a nearby building, blasting more than one Chitari along the way. He passed Clint, who was on one knee, shooting an arrow into a Chitari that had just reached the top of the building. He then ducked under two laser blasts, then stood up. He nocked another arrow, and fired it into the head of one Chitari that was flying a speeder, and the Chitari crashed the speeder into the head of a flying Leviathan, which Hulk was riding on the back on, throwing aside all kinds of Chitari. Thor then landed on the Leviathan and helped Hulk fight Chitari. The two worked their way down the Leviathan, fighting Chitari before Hulk ripped a particularly sharp piece out of the Chitari's armor before he stabbed it into the flying beasts body. Thor then hit the piece with his hammer, driving it further in.

The Leviathan screamed as it fell dead, right through the central area of Grand Central Station. The people inside ran aside as the massive alien crashed through the building and the floor. Thor and Hulk walked across the dead Leviathan, breathing in and out as they took in the entirety of what just happened. They stood there breathing for a few seconds, before Hulk punched Thor in the head, knocking him off the dead Leviathan.

During all of this, Erik Selvig managed to pull himself together on top of the Stark Tower. He breathed in and out, remembering everything he did while under Loki's control.

While the military had finally shown up and was trying to do their part to help, Steve laid on his back and held a Chitari pole above his chest, trying to stop the Chitari from stabbing him with it. He knocked the Chitari around for a bit before he managed to push it off of him and knock it unconscious. Sora ran towards them and kicked the Chitari in the chest, making sure it was down.

"Captain," Clint told them over the intercom. "The bank on 42nd past Madison. They've cornered a lot of civilians in there."

"We're on it," Steve told him as he and Sora walked down the street.

The two jumped in through a second floor window just as one Chitari had pulled out an explosive.

"Freeze!" Sora yelled, blasting ice at the Chitari.

The Chitari's was knocked back by ice, and he dropped the beeping explosive. Two more Chitari turned towards Steve and Sora, but they got onto the ground, out of the way. Steve kicked a table, and it slid across the floor, knocking down one Chitari over it, and another behind it. Steve ran forwards, dismissing his shield as he punched the Chitari behind the table, then threw it over the ledge, in the middle of the crowd of people.

"Everyone!" Steve yelled to the crowd. "Clear out!"

As he was saying this, the other Chitari knocked aside Sora and grappled the man from behind. The alien pulled off his mask just as the one knocked aside from earlier recovered and ran out. Luckily, Steve managed to jump over the Chitari and hold it in place as the other one started blasting. Instead of hitting Steve, it hit the other Chitari instead.

"See ya!" Sora said, pointing his Keyblade at the Chitari.

Fire shot out, but the Chitari ducked and grabbed the rapidly beeping explosive.

"Oh, jeez!" Sora exclaimed.

Steve discarded the dead Chitari and ran towards the open window with his shield. Sore jumped out and Steve jumped up, blocking, just as the Chitari threw the explosive at the two. The explosive went off, and caused a massive explosion that blew them out the building, and destroyed much of the second floor of the bank. The two fell onto the street, Steve crashing into a car as they landed outside the building.

Luckily, the people inside the building were okay, and escaped the building with the help of the fire department and the army. Sora and Steve pulled themselves together and stood up as people escaped the bank around them.

"I'm starting to wonder if its too late to leave, like Vanitas suggested," Sora commented.

Steve chuckled.

"It is," Vanitas' voice announced above them.

The two looked up just in time to see Vanitas fall towards the ground and land next to them.

"Where have you been?" Steve asked.

"Killing Chitari and helping people," Vanitas said, confused. "What else would I be doing?"

The two decided not to comment on the pretzel salt that was littered around Vanitas' mouth.

Unfortunately, things had taken a dark turn back on the helicarrier.

"Director Fury," a female voice said from a blurry silhouette. "The Council has made a decision."

"I recognize that the Council has made a decision," Fury said, with his hands on his hips. "But given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I have elected to ignore it."

"Director," a silhouetted man said. "You're closer than any of our subs. You scramble that jet..."

"That is the island of Manhattan, Councilman," Fury declared, as Maria watched in horror. "Until I'm certain my team can't hold it, I will not order a nuclear strike against a civilian population."

"If we don't hold them there," the silhouetted man said. "We lose everything."

"If I send that bird out, we already have," Fury said.

He then turned off the monitors and turned away from them, hoping the team could hold off the threat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lack of chapters, but I forget a lot about stuff during my free time during the school week


	11. Closing the Portal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The nuke is launched

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting to think I should have worked a little harder at adding chapters. If I manage to finish this before tomorrow, I could actually post the next chapter of the Kingdom Hearts I story, where it picks up with them going to Halloween Town. How great of a coincidence would it be to post that on Halloween?

Natasha flew through the city on her Chitari speeder for a few seconds before she turned around, confused.

"Oh," she realized, annoyed. "You."

Loki was chasing her, shooting her with his blaster.

"Hawkeye!" she exclaimed into the earpiece.

"Nat, what are you doing?" he asked, watching her get chased from far away.

"Uh," she said. "A little help?"

Clint activated his bow and nocked another arrow. He pointed it down the street they were flying above.

"I got him," he said with a slight smile.

On the ground level on the bridge, Sora, Vanitas, and Steve watched as Natasha was chased by Loki.

"Okay, let's face it," Vanitas told his allies. "There's no way I can get another speeder. They learned their lesson the last time they let me get one."

"So how do you suppose we get Sora up there?" Steve asked.

"Well," Vanitas said, watching Natasha get closer. "One of us has a speeder."

"She's being chased," Sora said. "I don't think she has an opportunity to come down and pick me up."

"Who said anything about her picking you up?" Vanitas asked, looking at the other two.

Sora got the message right before Vanitas grabbed him by his shoulders.

"This isn't gonna be pleasant," Vanitas told him.

"You and your promises," Sora remarked.

"Hang on," Vanitas said, looking up at Natasha.

"To what?" Sora asked, genuinely confused.

Much like he did in Wonderland, Vanitas spun the two into a circle and threw Sora into the air. But this time, instead of catapulting him forwards towards something, he tossed his younger lookalike up into the air, towards the approaching speeder. Screaming in a mixture of fear and excitement, Sora managed to latch himself onto the back part of the speeder Natasha was flying. She looked over her shoulder at the young boy who was holding on for his life on the edge of the speeder.

"That was awesome!" Sora exclaimed. "But scary!"

Luckily Clint hadn't shot his arrow yet, and knew well enough to watch out for the flying kid. He shot his arrow at Loki... who caught it with his left hand without even looking. He looked at the arrow, then over his shoulder at Clint, smirking.

Then the arrow blew up, destroying his speeder, and throwing Loki back onto the balcony of Stark Tower. While Loki grunted as he landed on the balcony floor, the remains of the speeder crashed into the building, knocking the "ST" off the Stark sign.

Natasha then flew the speeder high enough into the air that she was above the mechanism activating the portal. She jumped off and fell towards the top of the tower, landing in a roll.

Unfortunately, Sora didn't get the message until she had already jumped off.

"Oops," Natasha said, seeing now that the teenager hadn't let go of the speeder yet.

Sora, now realizing things had gone wrong, screamed and let go of the speeder. He grunted as he fell onto a part of the balcony below Loki.

"Sora," he heard Natasha's voice through the intercom. "Are you okay?"

"Spectacular," Sora muttered, sarcastically.

Loki immediately got up, while Sora managed to drag himself up and pull a Potion out of his pocket. He looked up to see Loki standing up, looking out at the New York skyline.

"Oh, crap," Sora said, quickly downing the Potion.

Re-envigorated, (and hoping no one heard him say a swear word), Sora jumped up onto the balcony Loki was on and summoned his Keyblade, standing in a battle stance. Before Loki could do anything, Hulk leaped up, screaming, and tackled Loki into the main room.

"I just sweared for nothing?" Sora asked himself, standing straight up.

Hulk had crashed Loki through the window and onto the floor, on one knee. Luckily, Sora managed to get an attack in when he closed in on Loki with Sliding Dash. He attacked Loki with a combo attack, which threw Loki back onto a wall and onto the floor. Hulk rushed in through the shattered window and roared, ready to join Sora.

"Enough!" Loki exclaimed, standing up, looking at the two. Hulk and Sora actually stopped and looked at him. "You are, all of you, beneath me! I am a god, you dull creatures. And I will not be bullied by..."

He was interrupted when Hulk picked him up by his leg and smashed him into the ground. Sora backed up as Hulk smashed Loki into the ground in front of him twice, stopped and looked at him, then smashed him into the ground two more times, throwing him onto the ground on his right. The floor had actually come apart from the impact of Loki hitting it. Loki lay on the ground, beat up, breathing slowly as he looked up at the ceiling.

"Whoa..." Sora said, impressed as he and Hulk walked away from Loki.

"Puny god," Hulk commented as they walked.

"You can be pretty cool when you're not trying to kill us," Sora commented, looking up at Hulk.

Loki just whimpered where he laid.

Back up on the roof, Natasha observed the machine harnessing the Tesseract.

"The scepter," Erik Selvig said, garnering her attention.

She saw that he was looking over the edge of the roof.

"Doctor," Natasha said.

"Loki's scepter," Selvig continued. "The energy." Natasha walked towards him, kneeling down once she got close enough. "The Tesseract can't fight, but you can't protect against yourself."

"It's not your fault," Natasha tried consoling him with her left wrist resting on her knee. "You didn't know what you were doing."

Selvig looked up at her.

"Actually, I think I did," he said. "I built in a safety to cut their power source."

"Loki's scepter," Natasha realized.

"It may be able to close the portal," Selvig confirmed. He looked over the railing onto the balcony where the scepter had fallen. "And I'm looking right at it."

Meanwhile, Thor had knocked two Chitari off of a speeder, but got knocked off of it himself when a Leviathan crashed through a building and hit it. He fell to the ground, so Tony went to work on the Leviathan. He blasted it with his wrist mounted lasers.

"Sir," JARVIS told him. "We will lose power before we penetrate that shell."

So, Tony flew forwards around another building, charging towards the Leviathan from the front as it crashed through another building.

"JARVIS," Tony said. "You ever hear the tale of Jonah?"

"I wouldn't consider him a role model," JARVIS said, uncertainly.

Tony adjusted his knee armor and flew right into the Leviathan's mouth. After a few seconds of flying inside of it, the Leviathan exploded, throwing Tony to the ground, right through the glass case of a bus stop. Tony awkwardly stood up, before he was blasted back into a car by another Chitari. Three Chitari slowly closed in toward him.

Another Chitari suddenly landed behind Clint. He quickly shot it with an arrow, and it fell back, roaring in pain as it died. Clint reached back for another arrow and found his quiver empty. A new Chitari landed in front of him and swung its blaster at him. Clint intercepted its attacks with his bow and pushed it over the edge.

Clint looked up, and saw multiple speeders flying his way. He pulled the arrow out of the dead Chitari and put it back in his quiver. He pressed a button on his bow, slipping an enhancement onto the arrow. Just as the Chitari shot their lasers at where he was standing, Clint jumped off the roof and grabbed the arrow. Turning in the air, Clint faced the building and shot the arrow with the enhancement of a grappling hook. The hook caught onto the building, slowing Clint's descent.

Clint grunted as he slowly went down the grappling line. Once he got low enough, he swung himself forwards through a window, and rolled onto the ground of an office building. He winced in pain as he laid on the glass.

Hulk was on a rooftop and had just beat down a few Chitari and roared out before a blast hit him in the back. He turned and looked up to see dozens of speeders above him, centering their guns on him. The Chitari opened fire, forcing the big guy to roar out in pain from the attack.

Sora, not wanting to test his chances by falling too high, stayed on the balcony and tried shooting spells at the various Chitari flying around. When he saw Hulk in danger, Sora sent up Thunder magic and hoped it would reach that far. A new blast from a speeder exploded in front of Sora and sent him flying back. He dangled from the ledge of one of the balconies, gasping at the situation.

Unfortunately, things were about to get even worse.

"Director Fury is no longer in command," a pilot heard a woman's voice as his plane was listed up through the hanger. "Override order 7-Alpha-1-1."

"7-Alpha-1-1 confirmed," the pilot said as the top of the hanger opened up, revealing the open air. "We're go for takeoff."

Maria Hill took notice in the central room.

"Sir, we have a bird in motion!" she announced to Fury. He noticed and ran down the hallway. "Anyone on deck, we have a rogue bird."

"We need to shut it down!" Maria exclaimed as she worked on the console. "Repeat, takeoff is not authorized."

Fury walked out onto the main deck carrying a rocket launcher. When he saw the plane flying down the runway, he fired it. The rocket blew up the back part of the plane, causing it to slide across the ground, and barely fall over the side of the helicarrier. Fury lowered the empty rocket launcher just in time for another jet to fly down the railway and off the helicarrier. He pulled out his handgun and aimed it, but he was already too late. The plane flew through the air, which was a very bad thing.

Fury walked back inside, closed the door, and turned on the intercom.

"Stark," he said. "Do you hear me? You have a missile headed straight for the city."

"How long?" Tony asked, getting up just as a Chitari attacked his head with the butt of its blaster.

"Three minutes, max," Fury told him over the intercom while Tony tried to blast at the Chitari that had surrounded him. "The payload will wipe out Midtown."

"JARVIS," Tony said, looking around at the Chitari. "Put everything we've got into the thrusters."

"I just did," JARVIS said as Tony got on one knee and a Chitari grappled onto his back.

Tony threw the Chitari off and flew into the air. He had to hurry. The plane had already fired the missile.

Back on the bridge, Vanitas, Thor and Steve were fighting for their lives against Chitari and Heartless. Thor and Steve held out their hands as their respective weapons flew back in. Steve turned around and attacked a Chitari that tried attacking them from behind. Thor, instead, rushed in and attacked a Soldier Heartless that was running towards them. Vanitas sliced off the head of a Chitari with his machete while Steve knocked his Chitari back towards a building. Thor then knocked the Soldier into another Chitari with his hammer, which destroyed it and knocked out the Chitari.

Steve was suddenly hit in the gut by a blast from some new Chitari and fell to the ground. The Chitari continued to shoot at Thor and Vanitas. Thor intercepted the blasts with his hammer while Vanitas just took them, not even wincing as the blasts hit him. Thor then swung his hammer into a car that was sent spiraling through the remaining Chitari on that part of the bridge. He turned around to see Vanitas shooting at some Chitari and Heartless with his Colt handgun before it became empty clicking.

"I'm out," Vanitas exclaimed, putting the gun back in the holster.

Thor threw his hammer at the remaining Chitari and the two turned towards Steve, who had managed to get up onto one knee. Thor offered his hand and helped the soldier up.

"You ready for another bout?" Thor asked as Steve held his side where he got hit.

"What, are you getting sleepy?" Steve asked as he looked down the opposite street.

"I could use a nap," Vanitas admitted. "But I can put it off for now."

Thor held out his hand and his hammer flew back into it.

"If only they had something like that for your car keys," Vanitas commented.

Back on Stark Tower, Natasha had helped Sora up and they collected the scepter, taking it back up to the power station on the roof. Selvig had set up the station's computer system and looked at the two.

"Right at the crown!" he told them.

Natasha pointed the scepter at the "crown," and pressed the end of it into the force field. Through a lot of fighting, the scepter broke through the force field and got close to the Tesseract.

"You're doing great!" Sora encouraged her.

"I can close it," she announced, partly over the intercom. "Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down."

"Do it!" Steve exclaimed.

"No, wait," Tony told them.

"Stark, these things are still coming," Steve argued.

"I got a nuke coming in," Tony told them as he flew over the water, towards the missile. "It's gonna blow in less than a minute."

He started flying after the missile as it flew past the top of a bridge.

"And I know just where to put it," Tony said, already not a fan of his plan.

He flew underneath the missile and grabbed it.

"Stark," Steve said. "You know that's a one way trip."

"Let me do it," Vanitas suggested. "If I blow up, the kid just has to use magic to put me back together."

"Save the rest for the turn, J," Tony told JARVIS.

"Sir, shall I try Miss Potts?" JARVIS asked, putting up her picture on Tony's screen.

"Might as well," Tony said.

Pepper Potts was on a private jet, watching the havoc going on on the television on the plane, not noticing her silent phone going off.

Back in the helicarrier's infirmary, Donald and Goofy were watching the same broadcast from the wall mounted television.

"Gawrsh," Goofy exclaimed. "Things are getting pretty out of hand."

"I hope Sora and Vanitas are okay," Donald said. "As much as he can try to deny it, Vanitas is as much of our friend as Sora."

"You know it," Goofy agreed.

In the helicarrier central room, everyone, including Maria Hill and Nick Fury, watched with bated breath as the same news broadcast was played over all the monitors.

Steve, Thor, and Vanitas looked up from their spot on the bridge to see Tony riding on the missile as it flew right towards Stark Tower. Tony activated thrusters on his chest and redirected the missile. Hulk looked up as Tony flew the missile in front of the tower. Sora, Natasha, and Selvig watched with bated breaths as Tony flew into the portal carrying the missile.

Everyone in the central room of the helicarrier either cheered or sighed in relief at this development. Well, everyone except for Fury, who only hoped Tony was okay. (I think.) He continued to watch the monitor, hoping for a new development.

Tony flew through space and eventually lost his grip on the missile as the power on his suit failed. He fell back towards the portal, but luckily, he had already aimed the missile so that it was flying towards the Chitari mothership(?). Tony watched through his suit as the missile hit the center of the ship, engulfing the entire thing in a giant explosion.

Back on the bridge, Chitari around Steve, Thor, and Vanitas started to deactivate and fall to the ground, dead. The three looked on in amazement as all the Chitari, and even the remaining Leviathans, hit the ground (and buildings) dead.

Tony, meanwhile, stared at the empty space for another second before he closed his eyes. He slowly fell towards the portal.

"The son of a bitch did it," Vanitas remarked as they all looked up at the portal.

"Come on, Stark," Natasha muttered, hopeful.

"He's gotta be okay, right?" Sora asked. "That armor of his is nearly indestructible. He should be able to get back in it. Right?"

After a few seconds of looking at the explosion through the portal, Thor and Steve looked at each other, a mutual understanding passing between the two.

"Close it," Steve said, forlornly, as he looked up at the portal.

"Damn," Vanitas said, sadly. "I had hoped he would make it."

Natasha looked at the Tesseract and knocked it out of place in the frame. Selvig looked up and gasped as the beam keeping the portal open disappeared. Steve and Vanitas looked down in sadness as the portal started to close.

Luckily, Tony managed to fall through the portal right before it could close. Just in time, too, as the explosion spread to right where the portal had closed.

Tony fell through the air, and everyone looked up, smiling.

"Son of a gun," Steve said, impressed.

"We'll get you cussing," Vanitas remarked, patting Steve on the shoulder. "One of these days."

After a second of watching, Thor realized something.

"He's not slowing down," he remarked.

Thor spun his hammer by the wrap on the end, preparing to take flight.

Tony fell in front of a building, and Hulk leaped in out of nowhere, catching the man in his arm, and landing on the building. Hulk slid down the building, tearing up most of the outside wall, and leaped off, landing on the bridge with Tony in his arms. He tossed the unconscious Tony on the ground as the others ran towards him.

Thor pushed Tony on his back as the four of them looked at him.

"Is he breathing?" Steve asked.

Vanitas grabbed the mask part of Tony's helmet and tossed it aside. Steve pressed his ear and hand to Tony's chest, trying to detect him breathing, or a heartbeat.

"I don't think you'd be able to feel a heartbeat through the suit," Vanitas commented, before he looked down at the unconscious man. "_Please_ don't tell me he needs mouth-to-mouth."

After a few seconds of staring at the unconscious Tony, Hulk roared out, at which Tony gasped awake. Steve and Vanitas sighed out, relieved, and Hulk roared triumphantly.

"What the hell?" Tony asked. He looked up to see Thor looking down at him, a little confused. "What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me."

Steve sighed out before he looked forwards. After a few seconds, he finally announced,

"We won."

Tony sighed out and pressed his head against the ground.

"All right, yay!" he said, waving one arm a bit. "Hurray. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day."

He looked over to Hulk and Vanitas.

"Have you guys ever tried shawarma?" Tony asked. Steve actually laughed at that. "There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I want to try it."

"We're not finished yet," Thor said, looking up at the building, then back at Tony.

On the roof, Sora, Natasha, and Selvig were looking up at where the portal used to be. The Keyhole glowed brightly in its place.

"That's my cue," Sora said, summoning the Keyblade.

Sora pointed the Kingdom Key up at the Keyhole. Stars appeared and flew into the point before a beam shot out, high into the air, into the Keyhole. The sound of a lock clicking originated, and with a few flashes of light, the Keyhole disappeared.

"That's it?" Natasha asked. "The Heartless are gone?"

"Yep," Sora confirmed. "You won't be seeing them around here anytime soon."

"You did good, kid," Vanitas said over the intercom.

"Thanks," Sora said, surprised to get actual praise from Vanitas.

Back on the bridge, the others understood what else needed to be done.

"And then shawarma after," Tony added.

Loki managed to pull himself together enough to crawl onto some steps and turn around to lay against them and look towards the window. Instead, he looked up.

From left to right, Tony stood with his helmet off, Vanitas stood next to him holding his shotgun in his hands, Hulk stood behind them looking angry, Steve stood next to him holding his shield, next to him, Sora held his Keyblade in his right hand, Thor stood next to him holding his hammer, and Natasha stood next to him holding the scepter. And Clint stood in the front, pointing a nocked arrow at Loki.

"If it's all the same to you," Loki said, calmly. "I'll have that drink now."

* * *

Sometime later, after Hulk had converted back into Bruce, the eight of them sat at a table in a messed up shawarma restaurant, with an A rating from the health department. An employee stood in front of the counter, trying to sweep up the plaster on the floor.

Steve sat with his elbow rested on the table, his fist covering the lower half of his face. Natasha was also leaning against a table as she ate. Clint was sitting in one chair and resting his legs on part of Natasha's chair, a container resting on his lap. Sora was picking tiny pieces out of a container he had one at a time, trying not to do such big bites. Bruce did a similar thing, just small bites. Tony leaned back in his seat, resting against the chair rest. Thor and Vanitas both ate their sandwiches with vigorous appetites.

"This is pretty good," Sora commented.

"Yeah," Bruce agreed. "Definitely a unique taste."

"One I could get used to," Vanitas remarked.

"I thought your taste buds didn't work," Natasha commented.

"They don't," Sora commented. "That's how he confused tequila for a Potion once."

"What's the difference?" Tony joked.

"I'm aware they don't work," Vanitas said with a slight laugh at Tony's joke. "But if they did work, then I'm sure it would be a taste I could get used to."

The others chuckled as they continued their meal, satisfied with what they accomplished that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what, I'm going for it.


	12. The End... For Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team regroups one last time... for now, at least

Some time later, every network of television was talking about the same thing: the Avengers.

"Despite the devastation of what has been confirmed as an extraterrestrial attack," a newscaster announced on a screen. "The extraordinary heroics of the group known as the Avengers has been for many not only a cause for comfort, but celebration."

On the many screens, they showed images of people celebrating about the Avengers.

"It's really great knowing they're out there," a guy being interviewed by another newscaster said. "That someone is watching over us."

"I love you, Thor!" one woman yelled.

"Vanitas is hot!" one teenaged girl also yelled.

"And then these guys were like..." one kid explained before he gestured what was surely Tony shooting out of his hand thrusters. "Then the air goes..." He gestured an explosion. "And this green guy goes..." He gestured the Hulk growling.

"I don't know," another man said. "I don't exactly feel safer with those things out there."

"It just seems there's a lot they're not telling us," a woman with him said. "I mean, what are these 'Heartless'?"

"Superheroes in New York?" an old man playing Chess in the park asked. "Give me a break."

"These so called 'heroes'," a senator said in an interview. "Have to be held responsible for the destruction done to this city. This was their fight. Where are they now?"

"Tough questions are being asked about the Avengers themselves," a new newscaster announced while the Avengers, Loki, and newly healed Donald and Goofy gathered on a bridge outside the city. "Their sudden appearance and equally sudden disappearance..."

Tony was dressed in a slick gray suit. Thor was carting Loki aside in shackles, with a cover over his mouth. Steve, Bruce, Natasha, and Clint were wearing street clothes, trying not to stand out as much as they already were. Sora and Vanitas had cleaned up a bit after the fight, but instead of getting a new outfit, Vanitas just kept on his SHIELD suit. Donald and Goofy walked with them, their wounds from the crash freshly healed.

With Tony and SHIELD's help, they were able to fix up the Gummi ship pretty easily after they fixed the computer and Cid instructed them through the whole process. With a few spells from Vanitas' book, they even managed to patch up the cooler and the satchel carrying all the Potions. The Gummi ship was now near where they were, ready for takeoff once they were all finished.

"What, that this is all somehow their fault?" a blonde woman that was in the bank asked. "Captain America and Sora saved my life." She sighed in and out. "Wherever they are, and wherever any of them are, I would just... I would want to say thank you."

Fury looked up from the screen to the silhouetted images of the Council.

"Where are the Avengers?" a man with an accent asked.

"I'm not currently tracking their whereabouts," Fury told them with his arms crossed. "I'd say they learned a leave of absence. Especially since Vanitas and Sora still have work to do in other worlds."

"And the Tesseract?" a female member asked.

"The Tesseract is where it belongs," Fury told them.

While they were talking, Selvig had joined the group outside the city and had given them a suitable container to hold the Tesseract in. Steve watched with a frown on his face as Bruce put the Tesseract in the container with some oversized pliers.

"Out of our reach," Fury finished to the Council.

"That's not your call," a male member told Fury.

"I didn't make it," Fury admitted. "I just didn't argue with the god that did."

Thor was saying goodbye to Selvig, Sora and Vanitas as they still had this conversation.

"So you let him take it," a male member of the Council said. "And the war criminal, Loki, who should be answering for his crime."

Clint stared down Loki through sunglasses as Natasha whispered something to him that made him smile.

"Oh, I think he will be," Fury said, cockily.

Thor offered the other side of the container to Loki, who took it. Thor nodded to his allies and turned the valve. The two were surrounded in blue energy and then shot into the air.

"I don't think you understand what you've started," a female member said as Tony and Steve shook hands. Donald shook hands with Tony and thanked him for his help.

"Letting the Avengers loose on this world," she continued as Natasha gave Bruce a bag. She and Sora then shook hands, before Sora did the same with Steve. Clint and Natasha got into a car, and Vanitas patted both Bruce and Tony on their shoulders in gratitude before they got in Tony's car.

"They're dangerous," she finished as Sora, Donald, Vanitas, and Goofy nodded at everyone in thanks as they climbed in the Gummi ship.

"They surely are," Fury agreed as Tony and Bruce drove away to Stark Tower. "And the whole world knows it."

"Every world knows it," Fury emphasized.

"Was that the point of all this?" a male member of the Council asked. "A statement?"

Steve drove away on his motorcycle with a smirk on his face. Sora, Vanitas, and friends flew the Gummi ship into orbit, content with a job, sort of, well done.

"A promise," Fury confirmed.

The monitors turned off and Fury walked through the hallways back to the central room.

"Sir, how does it work now?" Maria asked Fury as they walked down the pathway in front of the main diaz of the central room. "They've gone their separate ways. Some, pretty extremely far. If we get into a situation like this again, what happens then?"

"They'll come back," Fury simply told her.

"Are you really sure about that?" Maria asked as they walked onto the diaz that was right in front of the main window.

"I am," Fury confirmed.

"Why?" Maria asked.

Fury stared out the window for a second before he answered,

"Because we'll need them to."

Maria, satisfied with that answer, walked down the walkway as Fury continued to stare out the window.

Back at Stark Tower, Tony and Pepper got to work on fixing up the new layout and designs for the Tower for it to accommodate the Avengers. Outside on the tower, all that was left of the banner reading Stark, was the letter A.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of Keybladed Avengers! Did you guys like it as much as I liked writing (typing) it? It was really cool to use these characters I really like, and have them interact so well with these other characters I really like. It was just so cool!  
Of course, with this story over, we're going right back to Vanitas in Kingdom Hearts. And I hate to say it, but we won't be having more crossovers with the Avengers until after Chain of Memories. Hopefully doing those two will satiate the desire for more with these guys. Trust me, I want to type them as much as you guys want to read them. Check out the description in the bio for this series to check out the full plot line if you haven't already, and are curious about where we go from here


End file.
